Country: POL/GB/LUX
Technical: col 112m
Director: Kasia Adamik
Cast: Lesley Manville, Sascha Ley, Tom Burke, Zofia Wichlacz, Miron Jagniewski
Synopsis:
1981: a professor of psychiatry is invited to Warsaw to deliver a paper, but becomes embroiled in student protests and martial law.
Review:
The specialism of the protagonist is the phenomenon of dreams, except that she does not - normally - dream; all of which lends the entreprise a distinctly Kafkaesque flavour, together with the production design, somewhere between Welles's The Trial and Alex Proyas's The Crow! However, there is only so much running and hiding among tower blocks one can take before the brain starts to demand clarity and coherence. The role of food is particularly troubling: in Warsaw for nearly three days, Manville throws up the only morsel she gets to ingest, adding to the sense of unreality. Nevertheless, in the 'westerner abroad in totalitarian state' stakes, this is a satisfying genre mash behind the iron curtain, as well as further demonstration of Manville's range as an actress, her cantankerous academic proving more than a match for the communist secret police.
Country: POL/GB/LUX
Technical: col 112m
Director: Kasia Adamik
Cast: Lesley Manville, Sascha Ley, Tom Burke, Zofia Wichlacz, Miron Jagniewski
Synopsis:
1981: a professor of psychiatry is invited to Warsaw to deliver a paper, but becomes embroiled in student protests and martial law.
Review:
The specialism of the protagonist is the phenomenon of dreams, except that she does not - normally - dream; all of which lends the entreprise a distinctly Kafkaesque flavour, together with the production design, somewhere between Welles's The Trial and Alex Proyas's The Crow! However, there is only so much running and hiding among tower blocks one can take before the brain starts to demand clarity and coherence. The role of food is particularly troubling: in Warsaw for nearly three days, Manville throws up the only morsel she gets to ingest, adding to the sense of unreality. Nevertheless, in the 'westerner abroad in totalitarian state' stakes, this is a satisfying genre mash behind the iron curtain, as well as further demonstration of Manville's range as an actress, her cantankerous academic proving more than a match for the communist secret police.
