Walesa. Czlowiek z nadziei (2013) Reviews

• Film done on request of party after Wajda turned to politician.

  jovenoven2016-09-13

  Film is supposed to show Walesa as a polish hero. When watching dokumentaries it's clear that he was a selfish egocentric hard to communicate man within "Solidarnosc" union. Film is a pure fantasy. Today's documents say that he might have collaborate with polish KGB. Instead jumping through the fence (he cannot specify where exactly) he was delivered by KGB officers from the watersite. The fact that today no one is left by his site from old Solidarity people, except of those, who made big fortunes tells also a lot. After he called in 2012 to beat "Solidarity" protesting on Warsaw streets, he doesn't deserve any movie at all. It turned out that Falacci was right. Besides Wajda calling to domestic war because his opponents can win tells for itself. Friend made a film about friend spending public founds granted by friends.

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• "Walesa" film review

  lychowski-810-3903432013-10-06

  WALESA, MAN OF HOPE ANDRZEJ WAJDA - 2013 Andrzej Wajda's most recent film, Walesa, Man of Hope, is certainly thought provoking and can be interpreted in various ways. On the most obvious, superficial level, it is about the birth of the Solidarity movement (Solidarność) and the political rise of its top leader Lech Walesa. Wajda resorts to documentaries of that period interweaving facts and fiction in a harmonious, skillful way. As a Russian journalist put it, in the future no one else would be capable of making a film like this depicting those times in such a faithful manner. However from a psychological point of view, the film might be trying to resolve a dire dilemma: to what extent was Walesa forced to collaborate with the communist regime? Wajda seems to suggest that despite Walesa's possible initial weakness – signing a document by which he agreed to "have talks" with secret agents - it is undeniable that his subsequent opposition to the regime was authentic and very courageous and that the freedom and independence of Poland after more than 44 years of communist domination can be undoubtedly attributed to his extraordinary success as a mass leader. We should not forget, furthermore, that the defeat of the Kremlin gang ultimately led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. To what point can one resist torture? Physical, psychological? To Walesa it might have meant exposing his family, wife and children, to all kinds of persecution. What torture can achieve we witnessed in those famous Stalinist trials. There the condemned confessed to anything and were shot dead. One of the heroes of the Polish Resistance Movement (Armia Krajowa – AK) , during WWII, Witold Pilecki, went to Auschwitz as a volunteer to try to organize resistance nuclei in the concentration camp, which, by the way, he succeeded in doing in a spectacular way. After the war, he was arrested and tortured by the communist regime in Poland, "confessed" to having conspired against the People's Republic and was condemned to death. He, who had managed to survive the horror of a concentration camp, was cruelly defeated by his own countrymen. Andrzej Wajda approaches thus another not less painful theme. Our guards in Pawiak prison in Warsaw (1942/1943) were not German, they were Ukrainian. In Polanski's The Pianist the ghetto police was Jewish. And in Vichy France the henchmen of the French were French as well. Thus both Hitler and Stalin used the people of the occupied countries to impose the most horrendous kind of totalitarianism: fratricide. When Danuta Walesa comes back from the Nobel Prize ceremony she is told at the airport by the customs officer to undress completely to check whether she was not smuggling in anything. She became the victim of most brutal humiliation, but not at the hands of the Russians but of her own countrymen. Dark Ages? But when, well back in the past or just around the corner? Yet there are also lighter moments. Walesa is arrested when union propaganda is found in the pram he is pushing with a baby inside. Already in the cell, with the babe crying loudly, a woman guard comes in and at once notices that the child is hungry. Without dithering she opens her blouse and breast feeds the baby. Sort of ill at ease, Walesa asks her: "Why are you wearing this uniform?" "My husband abandoned me and I've got three kids to raise", she answers and having accomplished her "task" leaves the cell. The men on strike inside the Gdansk ship dockyards, completely separated from the outside world, are helped by the population who bring them food and other necessities to help them keep going. Without that help would they have been able to resist the pressure? That, after all, was the solidarity movement, Solidarność, which defeated a dictatorial regime. Solidarność mobilized all the citizens in the country and opened up a new era for Poland and, in a way, for the rest of the world. Walesa the union leader has his counterpoint in Walesa the husband and father of six children. It is Danuta, his wife, who rules the home. Walesa "in pajamas", dutifully obeys. Danuta is a strong willed, determined, tender woman. It is from her that comes most of the strength of the electrician who, one day, will charm big crowds. Watching on TV Walesa's triumph, the ex (?) agent, who had been in charge of spying on him, comments to his colleague: "So he managed in the end! Never mind! Someday we'll get him". As in The Man of Iron, Wajda ends in a minor key. However, at the age of 87, it seems he is trying to tell us that a less cynical world can only be founded on truth. Janusz Glowacki, the author of the screenplay, was recommended to Wajda by Polanski and Pawel Edelman, the cinematographer, has already been awarded several prizes. Their competence only adds to the quality of the feature. As well as the Polish rock music of the 80s, that gives the film a rhythm that matches the background of those eventful years. Whoever has met Lech Walesa personally may feel that the actor playing him (excellent by the way) lacks his unique charisma, which helped the union leader so much in rousing the crowds. His son, Jaroslaw, thinks the film should not have been made now; that a perspective of no less than forty years might help avoid any kind of comparison between reality and fiction. But who, apart from Andrzej Wajda, would be capable of such a feat? Rio International Film Festival. Rio De Janeiro, 02 October, 2013. Tomasz Lychowski

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• Would work better as a comedy

  ggk-34-5468072013-10-12

  With all respect to Walensa - I honestly think this movie would work better as a comedy. The subplot with Walesna wife as well some comedic one-liners are the most enjoyable things about this movie. There's just isn't much to it. The movie spent more time "talking" about what great man Walensa is rather then "SHOWING" it. I think they did an excellent job of showing what colorful character he is but at the same times movie doesn't spent much time to have you feel what struggles hes going trough. His just "There". It simply lack emotions and there is something anti-climatic about the way it ends. When the movie ended I truly felt I've only seen 1/3 of a movie. Some good moments and an excellent cast but as a whole nothing special...

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• Wanna be cheated, have a look

  sznitke2013-10-04

  Historical films shall tell the HISTORY, and this film does not. Its main purpose is to do good to the alternative, untrue but unfortunately officially fostered as the only available story of Mr Walesa as the one to defeat the Reds. But the truth, recently being uncovered, is that he was the communist agent designated for the post of a "national hero" subject to covert pressure from them and the man to be blamed for the of the nowadays Poland's "second life" the life of secret services, "serial suicider", poverty, and Russian influences. Walensa is the key for the Poland to become free as it was in 1918-1939 - to hit Walensa and defeat his "legend" is for the Poland to become free at last. This film stands on my way to be free. Mr Wieckiewicz does his best, and the music of '80 stirs my memories, but there are so many good films these days. And few of them so harmful.

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• As a young man aged 87 years in year 2013,Mr.Andrzej Wajda is making great films which confirm viewers faith in the strength of "World Cinema".

  FilmCriticLalitRao2014-01-27

  At the outset, Walesa: Man of Hope is not an ordinary film. It is one of the best examples of Polish director Mr.Andrzej Wajda's unending talent and enormous cinematographic vision. The best thing about this film is how does one dramatize real life incidents to create a biopic which is both entertaining and rich in details. It is because of this quality that the film is so tightly structured that while watching it, one doesn't even realize how 128 minutes have passed. The film finds its origin in a detailed interview conducted by noted Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci. She takes the help of an interpreter (Italian-Polish) in order to ask important questions to Mr.Lech Walesa related to his turbulent life. What is of interest is that not only she asks pertinent questions but also receives candid answers. The manner in which these questions and answers are represented on the screen speak volumes about Mr.Andrzej Wajda's method of filmmaking. He goes to a relatively distant past to reveal unknown facets about a man who would become hugely famous after a decade. Polish actor Robert Wieckiwicz is extremely ideal in his role as Lech Walesa-one of the most famous Polish citizens whose name is known even to many young schoolchildren all over the world.Lastly,Walesa:Man of hope is not a film.It is pure history in making about a person who changed the destiny of a whole nation.

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