There is a Polish film festival currently at the IFI, where they are showing a different Polish movie (not all of them recent) every day for a week or 2. Having never actually seen a Polish movie before (sorry, Susa, if you’re reading this), I was certainly not adverse to going at Chiara’s suggestion. The film that she picked for us (myself and 2 of her friends from her college course) was, Ashes and Diamonds, which was made in the late 50s about the end of World War II. She had met the director, who is apparently a Polish legend, when she was in Poland for grad school, so seeing one of his movies seemed like a good idea.
It may seem a bit random for the Irish Film Institute to be hosting a specifically Polish film festival, but it isn’t. Bear in mind that Ireland’s population has become about 5% Polish in the past 10 years, and this has only increased more rapidly since Poland’s accession to the EU 3 years ago. Irish people, it seems, don’t particularly want to do manual labor if they don’t have to. Couple that with massive construction projects going on all over the country, et voila.
The main plotline is that it is VE Day and a Polish resistance fighter is told to kill a former soldier who has just returned from hiding in Russia, presumably to be part of the new communist regime. He has uber issues with doing so, despite having killed many people in the past. He contrives to fall in love with the barmaid at the hotel where everyone is staying, which gives him an overly dramatic new lease on life. So then the question: does he try and have a regular life with all its normal passions with this beautiful girl, or does he continue his fighting even though he doesn’t really want to anymore. There are a couple of subplots as well, the most amusing being a double agent who gets hopelessly drunk the night his “legitimate” boss is made a minister, and sacrifices both his resistance and aboveboard careers.
This was one of those movies that I really enjoyed at an artistic level, but it didn’t really hit me. I don’t think it was so much the language issue as it was the style – every emotion heightened and elevated, with very direct dialogue. Just a different time, I suppose. All the scenes with the main character and the bar maid made me want to shoot myself in the face, since the setup was just too blatant.
This being said, everything was beautifully shot, and the shell-shocked remnants of Poland featured were gorgeous. There was also some really cool imagery, my favorite being an upside-down Jesus with a thorny halo separating the main character and the barmaid as they talked in a bombed out church. One of the last scenes, which involved running through sheets blowing in the wind was also stunning (though its effect was mitigated as I had seen a very similar scene in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre the night before.)
There’s a couple of other movies on at the festival that look really interesting if I have time. I’ve got Thursday and Friday free this week, so if the weather’s crap and I don’t feel broke I might go back.
Am I glad I saw it? Upside-down Jesus, ahoy!
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