Reviews

Part without spoilers.

Why cheap? Black-and-white picture and very slow paced scenes to impose an artistic label.

Why boring? It's plot can be explained in one sentence, using just a few words.

Why pointless? This movie leaves nothing in your brain. No unsolved mysteries, no moral struggle, no beauty, nothing. It simply passes you like a television commercial that you have seen ten times already.

Below are major spoilers, without watching the movie the words that follow might make no sense at all.

History alienating. It is not historically inaccurate, since such things happen in all wars on planet, now, then and always will. It does highlight a part that is to be considered a minor in Polish history, which is the country where the highest number of Jews lived in world throughout centuries and it is NOT without a reason, yet that's off-topic so i suggest to go find out yourself the details. My point is, it takes a small element and makes it look like a polish movement on national scale.

Which makes it to the next point, it is an anti-polish movie, a phenomena that is quite common in Poland. It is a mixture of low national self-belief and uncertainty of his/hers historical roots which have been injected by occupation propaganda where each occupying country propagated history favoring the version best suiting their own interest. There are few scenes that might appear irrelevant to the main plot, especially to a person without knowledge of Polish history, but they actually are very important for the message the movie is trying to send. When you understand the symbols, you might see this movie's ugly plain face that hides behind this black and white curtain. I will present two symbols.

There is a scene with Wanda as a judge listening to what appears to be a prosecutor inspecting a saber. Which is probably the most emotionally valuable and sentimental item of Polish military ALSO he states that it's origins are of Pilsudski Legions, the ones responsible for Polish independence, together making it probably the most honorable and patriotic item of XX-century a Pole can imagine.

Now knowing this, you must ask yourself, what is this scene doing there and what is the director trying to say? For me, its obvious, he wants to link Polish patriotism with the killings of Jews during second world war. Why does he do this? Because he is ashamed of his Polish origins and he wants the people to feel what he feels.

Another question that might raise could be. Is it possible that Polish patriotism was a reason for the killings? There is nothing in known history that hints us that there is a link, more so one can assume that a Polish patriot during occupation in second world war would either join allied forces or underground army "AK"(direct trans.: "Army National") which worked together with Jewish underground armed forces, executed many operation's which included saving, supporting and freeing Jews. Since there is no historically accurate link between Polish patriots and the killing of Jews, then who killed the Jews? The answer is simple, criminals who took opportunity in times of Nazi laws.

Another scene is where Wanda say's to Anna "Fancy stained glass next to cow sh*t." is pretty obvious, Poles are "cow sh*t" and Roza is "fancy stained glass".

All in all, i give this movie 2 out of 10. The 2 points are for the camera work, which gave me good impression. Thank you.