623. Man of Marble

Man of Marble
1977
Directed by Andrzej Wajda

Well that was a bit of a chore.  I am having a lot of trouble finding these movies lately.  I tried and failed to find Bigger Than Life for my sister today.  I feel so impotent. I was able to find the first half of this movie (without subtitles of course) but had to go to a shady Polish site to get the rest.  Once again, I had to download a separate file of subtitles and scroll along as I go.  The struggle continues.

Agnieszka is a young director who is making her thesis film on Mateusz Birkut.  Birkut was a bricklayer who was hailed as a hero by the Party for his record breaking brick quotas.  How could a film about a bricklayer not be interesting?  That's gold right there.  Anyway, Birkut has fallen from grace and his current whereabouts are unknown.

Of course, I have to bitch about the running time.  It's tradition, after all.  Two hours and forty minutes. It was quite frankly exhausting, mostly because it was difficult keeping up with the subtitles.  That being said, I am glad I watched this.  I suppose Mateusz was the real main character of the film, but even so, I loved the focus on Agnieszka.  When was the last time we had a positive female character in one of our movies?  Annie Hall...maybe.  Princess Leia?  Regardless, it's not very common.  But here we had a woman in charge of something and she wasn't a sociopath!  Yay!

From a historical point of view, this was definitely an interesting piece.  How they got this past the sensors, I have no idea.  Definitely not a favorite, but still worth seeing.

RATING: ***--

Interesting Facts:

Because of the anti-communist material, the film was in development hell since 1962.