Mój Nikifor (2004) Reviews

• a beautiful film with a thought provoking message

  FuBballSpieler202006-03-21

  Moj Nikifor was not only visually dynamic, but was also well acted and altogether a really good film. Nikifor is a riddle. The character is extremely well portrayed (a woman plays him) and there remains throughout the film a mystery about he and his art that helps drive the picture and the actions of the characters in it. Marian is human and relate-able, as are his wife and acquaintances. The almost bartlebyesque plot is made believable by the clever, warm, and witty writing of the film. All this is set against the beautiful backdrop of the polish mountains in winter. I applaud the ending of the movie. The predictable choice would be for Nikifor to die with Marian by his side, but instead the plot stays more true to the character and the man himself, and Nikifor stubbornly lives on. My Nikifor is an excellent film and certainly not a waste of time. Whether or not you enjoy foreign films, this film is well worth watching. It is not only entertaining, but thought provoking as well. A Great Movie!

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• the angle this film has to be viewed from

  bxb_chicago2005-10-17

  Nikifor was given birth in the stables, by his deaf and mute mother. He had a twin sister, which later has frozen to death. Local Nikifor has inherited his mother's disability by having his tongue-tied to a palate (ankyloglossia), which made him unable to articulate and produce understandable speech, and was partially deaf. He was also illiterate. Various people have given him shelter, he had no birth certificate. From a legal point of view... he simply did not exist. He was raised and lived in an isolation from society, it's standards, and people, who poked fun at a miserable creature. Screen writer, Joanna Kos, in an interview in Gazeta Wyborcza admitted that film should be viewed as a study on humanity, and likened the story to this of an Elijah prophet.

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• My Nikifor

  colinwh-12006-12-31

  I was lucky in I was an admirer of Nikifor and in the mid 90's visited Krynica and the Nikifor Museum. I suspect the film echoes modern sentiment of his life and work, since in the town there was not the enthusiasm for his fame and the museum was somewhat lacking in content. However from the film I immediately remembered the town and its simple beauty, and spent an enjoyable week there. The film it is rather slow but does keep up a momentum; and shows how difficult the artist was to deal with by a bureaucratic society beset with vestiges of their own self importance, while having to openly acknowledge the status of a man previously held in ridicule. The acting is very fine, right down to the humanity of the two little girls, and there are significant small cameo shots such as the later dialogue in the scene in the town café which is typically Polish. Filming is also excellent. A memorable yet understated film.

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• True art is never lonely.

  shu-fen2006-04-13

  I have never known the existence of the late Polish/Ukrainian naïve painter Nikifor (Epifaniusz Drowniak/Nikifor Krynicki/Nykyfor) until I saw this biographical movie of his. Interesting enough he immediately reminds me of a local Hong Kong artist whose head is totally chaotic and behaves in bizarre manner. His trademark claim is that he is Hong Kong's "Kowloon Emperor", that's Tsang Tsou-choi, the world's oldest graffiti calligraphy artist (works in Chinese characters), well, much earlier than New York's Keith Haring but the latter makes tons of $$$. (By the way, Emperor Tsang is now on the official list of "Hong Kong identity symbols to be protected". One piece of wood he painted sold for US$1,100.) I even can't help thinking about Vincent Van Gogh, David Helfgott or UK's Banksy (though no proof of his insanity, yet), artists who are either physically or mentally-challenged. The life of the said names tell us many tears-in-bitter-joy stories that true art, no matter how late, will be discovered and appreciated by the world. What catches my attention is not the art of Nikifor, (to be frank, I have to confess that I need time to understand/digest his art) but Marian Wlosinski. How can he take that: the disillusionment of going to Krakow, the shattered future as an artist, the warning from his authority, the departure of his wife and two daughters… Why does he still insist on helping? How come his eyes see so differently from the others while no one cares about the frail old chap or his art? There is something about him that we can look into. Just like other films depicting lives of artists, this warm and direct storytelling offers no shocking food for our sensory cells but one, at least to me, Nikifor is interpreted by an actress! Krystyna Feldman accepts this role and tested the audience's response by disguising as a beggar soliciting money at the spa! Well, she is as freaky as the role itself. Queerly coincidentally, she shares the same birth year of our Kowloon Emperor. Well, no matter how old you are, you can have your eccentric fun as much as you want to.

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• A very subtle and moving interpretation

  cecil-122008-05-29

  I was at first puzzled by the way in which we got the impression that Nikifor had been 'discovered' at the point that the film began. He had actually been known since the late 1930's, albeit in a limited way. However, the film hinted at his mysterious background - what, for example, did he do during the 1939-45 war? Possibly it gained, though, from not going down that route as well as for ignoring the deportation that he underwent in 1947/8 when the Lemko (the Slav ethnic group to which he belonged) were deported to north-eastern Poland. His creative 'awkwardness' was subtly presented by Krystyna Feldman; and Roman Gancarczyk gave a a realistic performance as the artist, Marian Wlosinski. However, I gained the impression that we were supposed to see Marian finding himself as an artist through his care for Nikifor. I didn't find this entirely coherent. However, as a study in the development of a human being in that situation I thought that it succeeded entirely, especially against the subtle portrayal of the breakdown in his family. I thought that the background of People's Poland through the 1960s was convincingly presented and the range of characters in the film was brilliantly presented through some very accomplished and intelligent acting by the wide range of people presented in often quite small parts.

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