Mother Joan of the Angels (orig. Matka Joanna od Aniolów) [1961]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Filmweb.PL listing*

Culture.pl article

Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema: [MSP Website] [Culture.pl]


Mother Joan of the Angels (orig. Matka Joanna od Aniolów) [1961] [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* (directed and screenplay cowritten by Jerzy Kawalerowicz [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* along with Tadeusz Konwicki [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* based on the novella* by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*) is an award winning pre-Enlightenment era period piece that would remind American viewers of In the Name of the Rose [1986] or perhaps of the Salem Witch Trials depicted works as Arthur Miller's 1953 stage-play The Crucible.

Though the film is set in a remote village in 17th century Poland, it is based on an incident that took place at an Ursuline Convent in Loudun, France in 1634.  That incident has been also the subject of a book by Aldous Huxley entitled The Devils of Loudun [1952] and a subsequent British horror film The Devils [1971] [IMDb] directed by Ken Russell.  The current Polish film (made before the British one) played recently as part of the series Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema (in Chicago at the Gene Siskel Film Center).


Now on the surface, a film about a convent of apparently demonically possessed nuns and a priest sent over by the Church exorcise them would seem like a strange or even eyes-rolling tendentious film to be made under a Communist regime ("See how stupid and the backward the Catholic Church was (is)...").  On the other hand, the film could be read in almost exactly the same way Arther Miller's play was.  After all, The Crucible was _nominally_ about the 1692-93 Salem Witch Trials but was actually inspired by the 1950s McCarthy Era anti-Communist "witch-hunt" taking place in Hollywood at the time. So ... while nominally (and as certainly explained to the censors...) the current movie was about the Catholic Church of the 17th century (and the censors would hope ... "of the current time" ...) it was made in the context of a Totalitarian (Communist) Regime which was both still quite convinced of its own Truth and (still) quite violently obsessed with maintaining ideological purity ... Hmm...  ;-)


So, in the current film, a priest named Fr. Jozef Suryn (played by Mieczysław Voit [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) is sent by the Church hierarchy to deal with a remote convent of rebellious, indeed "demonically possessed" nuns.  His job was expected to be difficult as the previous priest sent up to deal with the nuns had apparently become "infected" by the same demonic plague that effected the nuns and was subsequently denounced and burnt at the stake by the Church's authorities for witchcraft -- the stake and the pyre still standing quite prominently between the convent and the village that existed just below it.

The villagers, unafraid of the nuns' "possession" and mostly just bemused by the spectacle of watching "the higher ups" -- on one side "dancing" and even somewhat promiscuous nuns, on the other side, far more austere (why? they wonder) Church authorities trying to bring them back into line -- really did not expect Fr. Jozef to fare much better than the previous guy.   Indeed, the village innkeeper (played by Zygmunt Zintel [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) and his rather buxom fortune-telling daughter (played by Maria Chwalibóg [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) tell him as much.  The local priest, Fr. Brym (played by Kazimierz Fabisiak [IMDb] [FW.pl]*), introduced to Fr. Jozef (and to us, the viewers) as he takes two little orphans (or they his?) out to play, past the above mentioned remains of the stake/pyre on which the previous (and failed) Exorcist had been burnt, ALSO tells Fr. Jozef to just be careful and take care of himself.

But Fr. Jozef has a job to do.  So he goes up to the Convent to meet with the Mother Superior, Mother Joan of the Angels (played by Lucyna Winnicka  [IMDb] [FW.pl]*), a smiling nun who freely admits to the priest that she's possessed by eight demons, and even lists them for him.  Further, it's obvious that she doesn't seem to mind (being "possessed").  Hmm...

Now she has some scruples.  When she does fall in love with Fr. Jozef (and _he_ certainly falls for her...) she does not want to give in to _that_ temptation.  So for a good part of the film, the two do castigate themselves and this is the 17th century Catholic Church, so the two are both flagellating themselves (each in their own quarters).  But clearly this can not stand ...

The rest of the film follows.  But it's clear as day 30 minutes into the film that no one is going to "exorcise" anyone (successfully anyway).  So, what's the solution?  Well, what do you think?  Again, like Arthur Miller's The Crucible, this is clearly a film intended for dual interpretation (and a challenge to both groups addressed).


NOTE: The film is available through Facets Multimedia's rent-by-mail service and for purchase on Amazon.com for a reasonable price.


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Gore Vidal: United States of Amnesia [2013]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Slant (2 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
SlantMagazine (W. Greene) review 
EyeForFilm (A. Wilkinson) review
Variety (D. Harvey) review 

Gore Vidal: United States of Amnesia [2013] (directed by Nicholas D. Wrathall) is IMHO an excellent if certainly fawning documentary about Gore Vidal [IMDb] one of the more articulate Americans of the last 100 years.   

PATRICIAN (Gore, born Eugene Louis Vidal, a grandson of U.S. Senator, Thomas Gore (OK), knew Eleanor Roosevelt, who even campaigned for him when he ran, unsuccessfully, for public office, as well as Jackie Kennedy even before she met JFK), ATHEIST (throughout his life he maintained that Judaism, Christianity and Islam were the three biggest curses to befall humanity in its history), HOMOSEXUAL (he wrote and published the first openly gay American novel, The City and the Pillar [1948] which he dedicated to "J.T.," who turned out to be a friend and U.S. serviceman who died on Iwo Jima who Gore later claimed was the only person he ever truly loved), he certainly gloried in being a GADFLY to the AMERICAN ESTABLISHMENT from which he came. 

But he certainly made people think.  His commentaries alongside SIMILARLY ARTICULATE and CONSDERVATIVE ICON William F. Buckley, Jr (!) during the 1968 (!) U.S. Presidential campaign became the stuff of legend, and unforgettable excerpts are happily included in this documentary.  Indeed, both he and William Buckley SET THE BAR for intelligent (and witty) public discourse SO MUCH HIGHER THAN WE ARE ACCUSTOMED TO TODAY that part of the effect of watching this documentary is to make one wonder if we have fallen off some cliff from a past golden age.

And yes, he did become an intellectual celebrity who attracted the likes of Sting and the Rolling Stones to his, yes, almost "god-like / cliff-side" lair facing the Mediterranean Sea somewhere on the west coast of Italy where he and his (presumably gay) "life-partner" Howard Austen would watch sunsets in truly Olympian splendor.  (The home, again featured in the documentary, was worthy of a Bond / Austin Powers character). 

As presented in the documentary, his was an almost absurdly ostentatious life.  But you just listen to him speak, just effortlessly dressing-down/verbally reducing-to-ashes some of the most powerful people of his time or from his life (from Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown, both former governors of California where he lived at one time, to his own mother... ;-) and you look then at that insanely beautiful home of his again in Italy, and it's just staggering:  If one was going to be rich and powerful, perhaps even obscenely rich and powerful, Gore Vidal would not seem to be an entirely awful role model to have, though honestly, Nero or Caligula could be imagined as (his) neighbors. 

Anyway, it makes for a remarkable and often FUN documentary about someone who, if nothing else, actively did choose to live his life to (his) fullest. 


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Begin Again [2014]

MPAA (R)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (K. Turan) review
RE.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review
Rolling Stone (J. Carney) review

Okay Begin Again [2013] (written and directed by John Carney) is a simultaneously sad and fundamentally hopeful even schmaltzy movie about Dan a washed-up "small independent label" record producer (played by Mark Ruffalo) and a singer-songwriter named Greta (played by Keira Knightly) who had spent five years "just being there" for her similarly struggling singer-songwiter boyfriend named Dave (played by Adam Levine) who turned around and dumped her as soon as he got his first big break.

The two lost souls meet in a folk club in New York.  Dan enters the place already barely-standing drunk after having been fired from the record company he had co-founded.  Greta is all-but-dragged on stage (it's "open mike night") by her salt-of-the-earth / well-meaning friend Steve (played by James Corden) on whose couch she crashed only a few days before, and goads the audience to get her to sing.  Feeling nervous, angry, put-upon, NOT READY, she picks up an acoustic guitar, apologizes for not being happy yet with this song, begins strumming, and sings out in a sad, barely audible, melancholic voice:

So you find yourself at the subway
with your world in a bag by your side
and all at once what seemed like a good way
you realize is the end of the line,
For what it's worth...
Here comes the train upon the track
There goes the pain, it cuts to black
Are you ready for the last act?
To take a step you can't take back ...

The audience, though AT A FOLK BAR, is still generally happier that she.  So soon it puts her out-of-mind and goes back to chatting with friends and drinking.  BUT Dan, who's stared at the same tracks only a few minutes before, wakes up, and starts hearing a drum beat, then a piano, perhaps a violin ... arranging the song in his head, still desperately angry and sad, but now worthy of air-time.  A connection's been made ... by him (and perhaps the viewers) to Greta.  The question now is whether Greta can get out of her own funk to be able to respond affirmatively?  After all, it's immediately clear that she's a _serious_ folk artist and she's just been betrayed (in far more ways than one) by her singer-songwriter boyfriend who she had thought was her soul mate.

The rest of the film follows.  And if you love music, if you love the lyrics that some of these gifted if often _terribly burdened_ word-smiths can string together (and it's not just folk, there's a rapper in the film too) then I think you'll love this film.

The original title of the film was "Can a song save your life?" but the current title fits as well.  The film is all about "Beginning Again."  It makes for a great, if in parts sad, sad, sad film that yes (mild spoiler alert)... does turn out well.


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Tammy [2014]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review

RE.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Tammy [2014] (directed and cowritten by Ben Falcone along with Melissa McCarthy) continues a string of both very funny movies starring the rather short and rather rotund actress Melissa McCarthy, and movies that despite their gags, sometimes on the cruder side, are _not_ without their point.  As such, like MILLIONS OF OTHER FANS, I have to say that I really LIKE her films and I know that for many, many of our parishioners at Annunciata she is "THE BOMB."

In the current story, set somewhere in downstate Illinois, Tammy (played by Melissa McCarthy) is introduced to us having an epically bad day, she crashes into a deer while heading to work at a random fast food joint, is late therefore arriving at work to the fast food joint, gets fired as a result and returns home early, to find that her husband Greg (played by Nat Faxon) is messing around with their otherwise nice neighbor Missi (played by Toni Collete).  Adding 2 and 2 together, even if perhaps she has it wrong (both Greg and Missi seem to be very nice people and not necessarily messing around in _that_ way), she declares them to be having an affair, packs her bag and head to, where she always heads to when she has a problem: mom's house.

'Cept mom (played by Allison Janney) isn't all that excited about having Tammy home (again?).  Indeed, we find her challenging Tammy to find another way to deal with her problems when grandma named Pearl (played by Susan Sarandon), with her own agenda, steps in.  Ma' was going to send gramms "to a home," gramms was not ready to go, and so Tammy arriving with her suitcase but no money, husband or job, becomes gramm's "ticket to flee."  Okay, it's not exactly the best of plans.  Arguably both Tammy and gramms are enabling each other to continue to avoid harsh realities, but it's a (temporary) "way out" for both of them: Using gramm's car and money, they decide take a quite random road-trip up to Niagara Falls by way of Aunt Lenore (played by Kathy Bates) and her lover Susanne (played by Sandra Oh) living out Kentucky-way.  Much ensues...

Among that which ensues is that both Tammy and Pearl find that they need to grow up / face reality.  And their instructor interestingly enough becomes good ole lesbian Aunt Lenore.  At different times she finds that she has to dress down these two "whiny women" telling them: "Guess what, life _is_ hard" and no one is going to help them (or even be able to help them) until they take responsibility for their lives even when at times it's not easy -- Tammy's not exactly Helen of Troy (neither as rich nor as good looking as she), and Pearl's gettin' old (and also has a drinking problem...).  But then Lenore knew a thing or two about taking responsibility for her life and making the best of things with the cards (gifts/talents) that she was given.

It all makes for a simple story but a remarkably good one: Yes, every single one of us will find life at times to be hard, challenging, disappointing, "not what we wished it to be," but HONESTLY "that's life," and we're asked within the talents and limits that we're given, to make the best of it (and hopefully to be able to reach out to others positively as well).  And honestly, how can one not applaud such a call to both responsibility and compassion?

Now looking at this film, the Catholic Church itself could find itself collectively sighing/complaining a little as "a lesbian couple" is arguably portrayed in the film as the most well-adjusted "of the lot."  But as I've written about this before (in my review of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel [2011]), the Catholic Church and Society have come to a cross-roads.  The Church has stated its position regarding homosexuality and Society, certainly Hollywood / the artistic community, has chosen to take a different view.  As such, part of the pain of taking the stand that the Catholic Church has taken on homosexuality is that it will have to endure for the foreseeable future one film after another in which homosexuals are portrayed as happy, responsible people differing from heterosexuals only in their sexual orientation, and in a free society there will be nothing that the Church will be able to do about it.  Nothing, except acknowledge that even imperfect people (as we are all) can still teach us all.  In any case, it should be noted that the CNS/USCCB's reviewer gave the film NOT an "O" (morally offensive), not an "L" (for limited adult audiences, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling) but an "A-III," the CNS/USCCB's equivalent of the MPAA's R-rating, and the MPAA gave the film an R-rating as well.

In any case, I would like end here by restating my admiration for Melissa McCarthy.  She has proven to be wildly popular in the parish where I serve and I by what I've seen wildly popular among "regular people" all across the country.  And I do think it is because people can relate to her and to the messages that her films often carry.   Here the message was very simple: Don't whine. Know who you are and do the best that you can with the cards (gifts) that you've been given.   And again, how can one not applaud that message?  Good job!


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Deliver Us From Evil [2014]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (1 Star)  AVClub (C-)  Fr. Dennis (0 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (S. Abrams) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Given that I'm a Catholic priest working in a parish where every other parishioner seems to be part of the Chicago Police Department or some other law enforcement agency and that I've been responsible for working with the young people of the parish since I've come here, I knew that Deliver Us From Evil [2014] (directed and screenplay by Scott Derickson along with Paul Harris Boardman, inspired by the the memoir Beware The Night by Ralph Sarchie and Lisa Collier Cool) about a NYPD officer (Sarchie) who finds himself investigating the demonic even as he did his police work would be a film that I simply needed to see and review here.

Unfortunately, I have to say that this film is a TERRIBLE adaptation, PERHAPS THE WORST that I've ever seen, of the book that it's supposedly inspired by.

Beware The Night (2001) is indeed a engaging / readable book by Ralph Sarchie, an actual former NYPD police officer, who really did come to be involved in what he calls "The Work" (cases involving possible demonic possession) in collaboration with fairly renowned Catholic lay "demonologists" Ed and Lorraine Warren (based in nearby Connecticut and of The Conjuring [2013] fame) and under the supervision of Bishop Robert F. McKenna, O.P. who also writes the forward to Sarchie's book.

EXCEPT FOR KEEPING SARCHIE'S NAME AND HIS NYPD AFFILIATION, there are VIRTUALLY NO CONNECTIONS AT ALL IN THE FILM to officer Sarchie's actual character or to his actual experience. Consider:

(1) Ralph Sarchie portrays himself in his book as a rather conservative/traditionalist Catholic.  In contrast, in the film Sarchie (played by Eric Bana) is portrayed as a "twice a year Catholic" (Christmas and Easter) and as having a "gift" (his partner calls it a "radar") for detecting cases that come-up that could have a "paranormal" bent.  In his actual book the actual Sarchie _chafes_ at the term "paranormal" maintaining that ALL THINGS "PARANORMAL" ARE "BASICALLY EVIL." 

(2) In Sarchie's book, he describes his mentor BISHOP McKenna, O.P. as again clearly on the Conservative/Traditionalist side of the Church, describing him as one who both prefers AND CELEBRATES REGULARLY the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass.  In contrast, in the film Officer Sarchie comes to be involved in a strange (para-normalish) case that he ONLY PROGRESSIVELY STARTS TO UNDERSTAND AS (PERHAPS) BEING DEMONIC IN ORIGIN through the involvement of a longish-haired, never in clerics, Hispanic "barrio priest" named Fr. Mendoza (played by Édgar Ramírez) who knows one of the families being tormented.

Now don't get me wrong, _my_ perspective on things is probably _far closer_ to that of the "feet on the ground" Fr. Mendoza who "knows the pulse/happenings of his neighborhood," than the venerable Bishop BUT THE OFFICER SARCHIE OF THE FILM IS A VERY DIFFERENT PERSON THAN THE SARCHIE OF THE HIS OWN BOOK.  Further, ANYONE WHO ACTUALLY KNOWS THE PULSE OF THE "FEET ON THE GROUND" CATHOLIC COMMUNITY among REGULAR parishioners in our cities (and in the country-side) WOULD KNOW THAT THE ACTUAL SARCHIE'S CONSERVATISM/TRADITIONALISM _IS THE NORM_ in our nation's blue-collar neighborhoods (and in the countryside): Year after year, the most common name that our parish's teens pick for Confirmation is _Michael_ after the Archangel who figures so prominently in Officer Sarchie's book and spirituality.

(3) In the film, the case that "Sarchie" and his partner (played by Scott Johnsen) find themselves "investigating" IS ALMOST COMPLETELY AN INVENTION OF THE SCREENWRITERS.  In the film, a squad of Marines in Iraq led by a certain Santino (played by Sean Harris) come across some weird chapel with a Persian / Latin inscription out there in the deserts of Iraq and return demonically possessed.  Santino, who starts wall-painting business after returning home, alternatively paints this inscription on random walls throughout the Bronx (including one on a prominent wall inside the Bronx Zoo) and then (presumably when he snaps out of whatever demonic state that he was in) paints over it again (to hide it).  Vulnerable people who see this inscription, which talks of some sort of a "doorway." come to be susceptible to demonic possession as well.  (Others apparently start to hum the song by The Doors called "Break On Through To the Other Side.") 

WELL ... IN THE BOOK: THERE'S NO MENTION OF THE IRAQ WAR (or even the VIETNAM WAR, where the reference to "The Doors" would have been more time-appropriate).  THERE'S NO MENTION OF "THE DOORS" OR THE BRONX ZOO AT ALL (!! - even though BOTH play such  overwhelmingly important roles in the film).  And there's only a brief mention in Sarchie's book (Chapter 11) of a case involving a JEWISH BORN WALL-PAINTER FROM NEW JERSEY who Officer Sarchie eventually came to believe MAY HAVE BEEN CURSED BY HIS BRAZILIAN-BORN MOTHER-IN-LAW in some sort of a West African-Yoruba inspired Santeria/Voodoo-like Rite.

So while in the film a Hispanic-named Marine turned "wall painter" from the Bronx came home from Iraq (the Middle East) with some sort of demonic curse on him, in Sarchie's book it was a Jewish-born (sort of Middle-Eastern) wall-painter from New Jersey who was cursed by his Brazilian (Hispanic in the broadest sense) mother-in-law ;-).

But it's all the same, right? ;-)

(4) Finally, as the film's climax approaches, Fr. Mendoza suggests that Officer Sarchie bring the possessed ex-Marine now _very conflicted_ tagger/wall-painter Santino to THE EPISCOPAL CATHEDRAL OF SAINT JOHN THE DIVINE for the requisite Exorcism.  Say what??

Oh to be a fly on the wall to hear the phone call between Fr. Mendoza and the good people at the Rectorate there at the Episcopal Cathedral:

"Hi, I'm Fr. Mendoza (you know of the religion and ethnicity that once launched that Armada against your ancestors' fair land, even as your pirates were sinking our ships with your Queen's blessing coming back with loot that we ourselves had stolen and melted down from the indigenous folks of the Americas).  I'm from a small Hispanic parish in a part of the Bronx that none of your Lower Manhattan parishioners, day-or-night, would be caught dead in except perhaps when on a cocaine run or perhaps with a sizable armed escort.  And it occurred to me that since some of you folks are also into archaic language (Shakespearean English if not our Latin) and Medieval dress, in the spirit of more contemporary Ecumenical cooperation or at least tolerance, to ask you if I could rent perhaps one of your meeting rooms, or perhaps a chapel, actually a niche in your Cathedral would do fine, TO PERFORM AN EXORCISM on a troubled colleague of a parish family of mine.  Don't worry, we'll clean-up the mess after ourselves when we're done.

"Now why would I ask YOU good folks so far away and of a different culture / religious tradition that often laughs at ours?  I'm not sure.  I think it has something do with my own character being driven to do these things by a Hollywood script writer who may harbor a deep hatred of my own character's religion -- a hatred that my character could actually even partially understand/sympathize with but a hatred taken to such a degree that the scriptwriter driving my actions can't even conceive conducting said exorcism in my own religion's church.  Or perhaps it's just that St. Patrick's Cathedral, you know down the street, is booked ... I just don't know" ;-)

THIS IS JUST A REALLY STUPID / POORLY CONCEIVED MOVIE.

I would recommend the book.  It's well written and sounds authentically like the traditionalist-minded  NYPD officer who wrote it.  But the film ... it's just terrible.


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The Last Day of Summer (orig. Ostatni Dzień Lata) [1958]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Filmweb.PL listing*

Culture.pl article
pl.wikipedia.org article*

Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema: [MSP Website] [Culture.pl]


The Last Day of Summer (orig. Ostatni Dzień Lata) [1958] [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*(written and codirected by Tadeusz Konwicki [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* along with Jan Laskowski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[Culture.pl] [pl.wikip]*) is an award winning, minimalist film that played recently as part of the series Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema (in Chicago at the Gene Siskel Film Center). 

Set on a deserted stretch of beach along the Baltic Sea, the film involves just two characters, we never learn their names, a young woman (played by Irena Laskowska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) and a young man (played by Jan Machulski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*).   The young woman had gone out to the beach at the beginning of the day, this "the last day" of her summer vacation.  There she encounters a young man, who it turns out had been spying on her of the last couple of weeks, but finally gained the courage come over and talk to her. 

Initially, she finds him an annoyance (and obviously a few years younger than she).  But, of course, they eventually come to talking.  The rest of the film -- again a very, very simple one -- follows. 

We learn why both were the way they were -- he shy to the point of bordering on creepy (he had been a refugee of one sort or another for so long that he really didn't feel he belonged anywhere -- except perhaps on this deserted part of the beach), she suspicious, afraid of getting hurt (her one love, a pilot, died during the war).  But there they were now ... even as ... annoyingly, deserted as this stretch of beach seemed, it was being used by the (then) current Polish (Communist era) air force to fly-over for training runs.  Throughout the film, the sounds of the breeze and the sea gets interrupted by the sounds of Polish Soviet-made MIG-15s flying both solo and in formation overhead.

So the story is full of tension -- with both IDYLLIC POSSIBILITY (two young people, alone on a seemingly deserted beach) and ... (lingering?) DREAD (those MIGs screeching by periodically overhead).  In a sense the film's a Polish post-war/Cold War era From Here to Eternity [1953] [IMDb] [en.wikip].  Once again, a great / fascinating film!


Note to Readers: this film is available with English-captions on the Polish Studio-KADr's own YouTube Channel.


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Night Train (orig. Pociąg) [1959]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Filmweb.PL listing*

Culture.pl article
pl.wikipedia.org article*

Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema: [MSP Website] [Culture.pl]

Night Train (orig.  Pociąg) [1959] [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* (directed and cowritten by Jerzy Kawalerowicz [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* along with Jerzy Lutowski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) like many of the films that played recently as part of the series Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema (in Chicago at the Gene Siskel Film Center) is both remarkably "simple" yet _very intelligent and elegant_.   Even if the film needed to conform to the (censorship) requirements of the then (Communist) "Powers that Be," it did nevertheless take-up universal issues and aspirations.  In this case, the film dealt with the themes of the Relentlessness of the Passage of Time (we all live our lives on a platform -- Earth -- which like a Train is passing relentlessly through Time) and then the Pursuit of Meaning/Happiness.  Inspired at least in part by Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train [1951], I thus find Kawalerowicz' film nevertheless more profound.

The film begins, presumably in Warsaw, with passengers hurriedly getting on a "night train" that will take them "to the Baltic coast" that is, "to the beach", "to a vacation spot", "to Paradise."  And as the various passengers board the train, there's inevitable commotion.  So there's the "good conductress" (played by Helena Dąbrowska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) both smiling yet firm, representing Authority, checking the tickets to make sure that everyone gets on train correctly.

Yet, despite the best of Plans (the Communists were into Plans, the Five Year Plans) a number of the passengers, among the most unhappy coming to the train, did not fit easy predetermined categories.  Thus, Jerzy (played by Leon Niemczyk [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) a surgeon, who's had a very rough day, comes to the boarding platform WITHOUT A TICKET but wanting to buy one.  What to do?  The conductress tells him to just get on the train and since usually someone doesn't show-up, they'll work it out when the train starts moving.  There's also a young woman named Marta (played by Lucyna Winnicka [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) who had a regular ticket for the train but quickly exchanged her ticket with another passenger, when to her horror, her former boyfriend Staszek (played by Zbigniew Cybulski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*), who she was trying to run away from, showed up in same train car as she.  (Now why would someone want to exchange with his ticket with her, especially since he was giving her an "upgrade"?  Well that gets dealt-with in the story as time goes on).  In the midst of these two personal stories taking place, a whole train of course is being boarded with all kinds of people and groups getting on board, each with their own purposes and stories.

Wonderful, when the train leaves the station and starts moving, Jerzy, who's boarded a sleeping car, finds the conductress and asks if he could just purchase one of the compartments (two tickets, for both beds) because he's had an awful day, and he just needs to be alone.  Well this kinda offends the the conductress' collective (Communist, all for one/one for all) sensibility.  But she also sees a man looking like someone who's really had an awful day.  So seeing that one of the compartments was indeed vacant, she lets him buy "both tickets for both the beds."

That's when Marta comes in with the ticket that she's hurriedly exchanged with a man in the neighboring car, and the ticket's for one of the beds in the compartment that Jerzy's just bought.  What to do now?  Jerzy complains to the conductress that he's just bought two tickets for the compartment so that he could be alone.  The conductress tells him that the sale was only provisional based on the assumption that no one onboard had a ticket for the compartment.  Now that someone showed-up with a ticket for one of the beds, she'd be willing to give him the money back for one of the beds. But since Marta had a ticket for a bed in that compartment, her ticket had to be respected.  Jerzy didn't seem to care about the money.  He just wanted to be alone.  Now he, a married man, though traveling alone, was being forced to share a compartment with a young woman -- other passengers passing through the corridor only catching a bit of the confusion, looked at him with a mixture bemusement ("lucky guy") and judgement ("perv").  Well the good conductress eventually throws up her hands telling both Jerzy and Marta that they're going to have to work things out themselves.  She's done all that she can to help them.

Wonderful.  At least Jerzy was relieved to find that Marta initially wasn't particularly interested in talking much either.  He may have had a rough day, but so did she.  She was running away from what today we'd call a "stalker boyfriend" and the stalker was even on board the train.  It's Jerzy at some point who tells Marta why he wanted a compartment by himself that night -- A patient of his had died on the operating table that day, and he needed time and space to process what had happened.

Now while their stories were playing out on this train, the story of the others were playing out as well.  There were vacationers, there were people just returning home from having visiting Warsaw for whatever reason, there were even Pilgrims on board, again all kinds of people with all kinds of stories, motivations and needs.

Among them, of course, was the person who seemed quite willing to change tickets with Marta they got on board.  Why would he do that?  Well, he clearly had his reasons.  And not getting into too much, they weren't necessarily the best of reasons.  So at one point the train stops, the Authorities come on the train, and deal with that situation ... to the observation (and gossip) of the others onboard.

Finally, the train reaches its destination (the Baltic Coast) early the next day.  And it's clear here that again different people were on this train with different motivations.  The vacationers were happy, the Pilgrims were happy.  Even those returning home (returning from THEIR TRIP "to the city") were happy.  But then onboard were also both Jerzy and Marta who were both distraught (for different reasons) when they got on-board this the train the previous evening, and now arriving at their destination ... the Beach, a place that ought to make them happy ... and ... one wonders if either of them will find happiness (or at least peace) there either.

Fascinating movie ... I also honestly loved the symbolism of "the Train" passing, even careening forward through time.  Can we remember that it will at some point reach its destination?  And therefore can we be ready (and hopefully happy) when it arrives?


Note to Readers, this film can be rented-by-mail through Facets Multimedia and/or purchased in various formats at Amazon.com.


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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