Polish Cinema on Disc

[MichaelB]

I wonder if anyone here has heard of the following films. I'm pretty sure they're not currently available (though I'd love to be wrong) and would like to know whether they at least have any kind of reputation or are mentioned in the literature on Polish cinema.

Tańczący jastrząb (a.k.a. The Dancing Hawk) Grzegorz Królikiewicz, 1977

A slightly belated reply, admittedly - but The Dancing Hawk has just come out in a box set that also includes Królikiewicz's Through and Through (Na wylot, 1972), Endless Claims (Wieczne pretensje, 1974) and Killing Auntie (Zabicie ciotki, 1984).

English subtitles are promised - and that's probably correct, since it's part of the invaluable Telewizja Kinopolska Masterpieces of Polish Cinema series, all previous releases of which are English-friendly. (UPDATE: The Królikiewicz box is definitely English-friendly, including the shorts - the only linguistic drawback is that the booklet is exclusively in Polish, but that's common to all these boxes.)

In fact, I might as well list all the titles in the series so far, as a number have quietly crept out recently:

Filip Bajon
Agnieszka Holland
Tadeusz Konwicki
Kazimierz Kutz
Wojciech Marczewski
Radosław Piwowarski
Jerzy Skolimowski
Piotr Szulkin
Krzysztof Zanussi
Andrzej Żuławski

Each contains three or four features, transfers are usually passable, and prices are delightfully low if you buy direct from Poland.

[Stefan Andersson]

Any signs of a reissue of the Polish WB Dekalog box set? Seems to be totally unavailable on the net, even secondhand.

[Donald Brown]

Can anyone confirm if the Polish edition of The Dekalog is still the best one? If so, from where is the best place to purchase it?

[Stefan Andersson]

I´ve been searching for the Polish Decalouge on the net. Can´t find one single copy up for sale on US Amazon or Ebay, neither on various European Amazon and Ebay sites.

There is now a French DVD box set (French subs only) reviewed in French here.

It´s described as remastered. Screencaps look good but doesn´t really give a clue as to whether the intended use of colour filters has been altered. Extras include a Kieslowski short (1966) and various featurettes regarding the use of reflections, water, the ever-present mysterious young man and more.

[bergelson]

Does anyone (MichaelB, where are you?), know what happened to all those promised Polish Blu-Ray's of such classics as "Hour-Glass Sanatorium", "Eroica", "Lalaka" and so on.

[MichaelB]

No, and it's somewhat revealing that the page linked to above has reduced the number of titles and removed all hint as to when they'll be released.

But for what it's worth, the list now comprises:

The Hourglass Sanatorium (Sanatorium pod klepsydrą, d. Wojciech J. Has, 1973)
Va Banque (Vabank, d. Juliusz Machulski, 1981)
Va Banque II (Vabank II, czyli riposta, d. Juliusz Machulski, 1984)
Sex Mission (Seksmisja, d. Juliusz Machulski, 1984)
Knights of the Teutonic Order (Krzyżacy, d. Aleksander Ford, 1962)
The Saragossa Manuscript (Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie, d. Wojciech J. Has, 1965)
All Souls' Day (Zaduszki, d. Tadeusz Konwicki, 1961)
The Great Shark (Wielki Szu, d. Sylwester Checiński, 1982)
Nights and Days (Noce i dnie, d. Jerzy Antczak, 1975)
The Doll (Lalka, d. Wojciech J. Has, 1969)
Pharoah (Faraon, d. Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1965)

[tavernier]

Since I can't find another Zanussi thread, I'll post this here.

Just announced by MOMA:

Krzysztof Zanussi Revisited
January 29–February 3, 2011
Krzysztof Zanussi (b. 1939) is one of Poland’s most important filmmakers. Thanks to a gift from the Polish Film Institute in Warsaw, and in collaboration with the Polish Cultural Institute in New York, MoMA recently acquired new 35mm English-subtitled prints of three of Zanussi’s finest films—Family Life (1971), Camouflage (1977), and The Constant Factor (1980)—adding considerably to the Museum’s collection of Polish cinema. Zanussi will present these films together with the New York premiere of his most recent film, Revisited (2009), on January 29. All films are from Poland, written and directed by Krzysztof Zanussi, and in Polish with English subtitles.

[Stefan Andersson]

With the Polish WB Dekalog box set OOP, I´m trying to find the DVD that uses the same master (or the second best master) that WB used. Does anybody have a clue?

Editions Montparnasse in France released Dekalog in 2004 (French subs only). They told me they used a master from Polish TV. Wonder if WB used this one? Or are all the releases from the same master, but differences in manufacturing causes the differences displayed in the various screencaps on DVDBeaver´s Dekalog page?

[MichaelB]

A digital restoration of Wajda's The Wedding has just been unveiled.

I'm assuming this means that a Blu-ray is on the cards at some point.

[eltopo]

Comparison:

DVD (2005 BestFilm, Poland):


4 DVD Box (2006 BestFilm, Poland):

[MichaelB]

As part of the impending major revamp of my currently mothballed blog devoted to central and eastern European cinema, I've started up a Twitter account to keep tabs on what's happening in the region.

(Polish films and DVDs are mentioned, so I hope this doesn't count as spam! And I won't be posting something similar in another thread, because I reckon my target audience all reads this one)

[MichaelB]

This might pass below the radar of many DVD purchasers, so I thought I'd flag up the fact that the new book Polish Cinema Now!, a 256-page look at the post-1989 history of Polish cinema, comes complete with two DVDs compiling a generous selection of documentaries and short films.

These are:

The Race (Wyścig, d. Marek Serafiński, 1989, 6 mins)
The Abnormals (Nienormalni, d. Jacek Bławut, 1990, 78 mins)
Franz Kafka (d. Piotr Dumała, 16 mins)
Dim (d. Marek Skrobecki, 10 mins)
89mm From Europe (89mm od Europy, d. Marcel Łoziński, 1993, 12 mins)
Stench (Smród, d. Artur Urbański, 1994, 16 mins)
Missy (Pancia, d. Iwona Siekierzynska, 1995, 14 mins)
Hairdresser (Fryzjer, d. Robert Sowa, 1996, 5 mins)
Silence (Cisza, d. Malgorzata Szumowska, 1997, 12 mins)
Jacob (Jakub, d. Adam Guziński, 1998, 16 mins)
Such a Beautiful Boy I Gave Birth To (Takiego pięknego syna urodziłam, d. Marcin Koszalka, 1999, 25 mins)
Tuning the Instruments (Strojenie instrumentów, d. Jerzy Kucia, 2000, 15 mins)
A Man Thing (Męska sprawa, d. Sławomir Fabicki, 2001, 25 mins)
The Cathedral (Katedra, d. Tomasz Bagiński, 2002, 7 mins)
A Bar at Victoria Station (Bar na Viktorii, d. Leszek Dawid, 2003, 55 mins)
Telefono (d. Marcin Wrona, 2004, 2 mins)
Melodrama (Melodramat, d. Filip Marczewski, 2005, 19 mins)
Taking Care (Pod opieką, d. Jan Wagner, 2006, 13 mins)
Seeds (Nasiona, d. Wojciech Kasperski, 2007, 27 mins)
The Calf (Cielak, d. Marek Marlikowski, 2008, 4 mins)
Where The Sun Doesn't Rush (Tam gdzie słońce się nie spieszy, d. Matej Bobrik, 2009, 18 mins)

(Full disclosure: I wrote one of the book's chapters, but that's a very small part of the overall package)

[Zobalob]

Thanks for that Michael, I'll certainly get this, looks like an interesting pair of DVDs....the Dumala animation (Kafka) was the one shown on TV here, way way back when Channel 4 was funding animation I believe.

[MichaelB]

I haven't had time to sample these DVDs yet (too busy with NInA's marvellous Władysław Ślesicki package, which I unreservedly recommend), but I'd already seen seven of those films and can firmly endorse all of them. So even if the remaining 14 are drastically below par, which is highly unlikely, it's still a worthwhile package even without the rather hefty book being thrown in.

(For what it's worth, the seven are The Race, The Abnormals, 89mm From Europe, Tuning the Instruments, The Cathedral, A Bar at Victoria Station and Where the Sun Doesn't Rush. 89mm From Europe is one of the great short films of the last two decades, and I was on a jury that awarded Where the Sun Doesn't Rush a special mention, and I don't recall any dissenting voices.)

[MichaelB]

This looks intriguing - Pojechane w kosmos is a box set compiling four rare Polish (or part-Polish) sci-fi features, namely:

The Silent Star (aka First Spaceship on Venus) (Milcząca gwiazda, d. Kurt Maetzig, 1959, 89 mins)
Signals - An Adventure in Space (Sygnały MMXX, d. Gottfried Kolditz, 1970, 96 mins)
Pilot Pirx's Test Flight (Test Pilota Pirxa, d. Marek Piestrak, 1978, 95 mins)
The Curse of Snakes Valley (Klątwa Doliny Węży, d. Marek Piestrak, 1987, 99 mins)

Critical reception seems somewhat mixed - Signals appears to be a blatant East German/Polish rip-off of 2001: A Space Odyssey, while The Curse of Snakes Valley was apparently shown in a 2002 festival of the worst Polish films ever made. However, the other two are Stanislaw Lem-sourced, and look a fair bit more intriguing.

I don't know about English subtitles, but I'm pretty sure all the other titles in the same series have them (this is certainly true of the ones I own myself), so it's likely.

[MichaelB]

Another Telewizja Kinopolska box has just been announced, devoted to the work of Andrzej Kondratiuk.

The films are:

Hydro-Riddle (Hydrozagadka, 1970)
How It's Done (Jak to się robi, 1973)
Assumption (Wniebowzięci, 1973)

(The second and third titles are my own translations in the absence of any official English ones).

I've seen Hydro-Riddle, which I recall as being a deliberately satirical attempt to make a Polish superhero film - by which I mean it's fully aware of the absurdity of a Polish "superhero" popping up in 1970, and sends itself up something rotten at every opportunity. I'm sure a lot of the jokes went way over my head, but I remember it being very entertaining.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

This spring, Indiana University Press will release Polish Cinema Now with two DVDs of short films.

[MichaelB]

It's exactly the same book as mentioned above - IU seems to be the US distributor, not the publisher.

Hopefully the DVDs will be NTSC, though - are book publishers aware of these issues?

[posto]

It's exactly the same book as mentioned above - IU seems to be the US distributor, not the publisher.

Hopefully the DVDs will be NTSC, though - are book publishers aware of these issues?

Thank for the tip - I ordered it thru Amazon. I got it today (delivered on Sunday morning!?).
This is exactly the same book as originally mentioned by MichaelB and distributed in US by Univeristy of Indiana Press.
Dvd's are definitely PAL not NTSC - will not play on my PS3 but no problem on a dvd player.

[MichaelB]

The Digital Fix on Polish Cinema Now!

[MichaelB]

Just thought I'd confirm that both the Andrzej Kondratiuk and Pojechane w kosmos boxes definitely have English subtitles.

Also, each box comes with two bonus English-subtitled shorts apiece, namely:

Bugler's Monologue (Monolog trębacza, 1965)
I Want To Have A Shave (Chciałbym się ogolić, 1966)

and

The Friend (Przyjaciel, 1965, dir Marek Nowicki, Jerzy Stawicki)
Computers (Komputerowy, 1967, dir Krzysztof Zanussi)

Skolimowski completists may like to know that he wrote the dialogue for The Friend, which is based on a story by Stanisław Lem.

[doc mccoy]

Michael,

Can you give any information on this box set:

http://merlin.pl/Horrory_Marek-Nowicki- ... 74988.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

How did you find the Pojechane w kosmos box set?

[MichaelB]

Michael,

Can you give any information on this box set:

http://merlin.pl/Horrory_Marek-Nowicki- ... 74988.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ooh, thanks for that - I hadn't spotted it myself yet!

It appears to contain these films:

Lokis - Professor Wittembach's Manuscript (Lokis. Rękopis profesora Wittembacha, d. Janusz Majewski, 1970) - details here;
Wolf (Wilczyca, d. Marek Piestrak, 1982) - details here;
Phantom (Widziadło, d. Marek Nowicki, 1983) - details here.

Links are to the Film Polski website, filtered through Google Translate - but the end results are surprisingly readable, and there's plenty of info on each film.

I'll be in Poland in mid-April, so I'll probably pick it up then.

How did you find the Pojechane w kosmos box set?

I haven't had a chance to watch it properly yet, but I can confirm that all the films are presented in Polish-language versions (i.e. there's no German or Russian option, despite most of the films being co-productions), and all six have English subtitles. Technical standards are on a par with the others in this series - i.e. nothing special, but perfectly watchable, and a bargain for what you get.

[Lemmy Caution]

Anyone familiar with Miasto Nieujarzmione aka Robinson Warszawski (Jerzy Zarzycki, 1950)? The dvd just turned up here, but only had Chinese and Polish subs.
An early post-war war film form Poland sounds interesting.
And Robinson Warszawski is a pretty cool name.
I might have used that when I was holidaying in Poland had I heard of it then.

[MichaelB]

Here's a pretty detailed description (including production history) from Filmpolski.pl - it's Google-translated, but reads well enough.

I normally approach Polish films made between 1950 and 1955 with extreme caution, as that was the period when Socialist Realism was rigorously enforced and even talented directors like Andrzej Munk and Wojciech Has had to produce simplistic one-note drivel - but this does sound intriguing, and possibly less tainted by dogma than many of its contemporaries.