At the exact opposite of the scale (both politically and cinematically) to the current ATLAS SHRUGGED release, UNDER THE PHRYGIAN STAR completes the class struggle story of CELLULOSE with a rousing, man the barricades finish. With the long-since ended communist movement in Poland, this '50s story is severely dated but interesting nonetheless.
I watched both halves, making for 4 hours total, via POLart DVD this past weekend and was rewarded by the careful, detailed direction of Jerzy Kawalerowicz at the beginning of his career. He's one of my favorite directors, despite his anti-Solidarity stance which later irrevocably hurt his reputation.
Title refers to the heroine, an amateur fortune-teller, reading our hero Jozef Nowak's palm, telling him he was born under that star. There is no such star, but it's her reference to the Paris Commune, a forerunner of the communist and union struggle this film is about, set in Poland pre-WW II.
Some knowledge of the history and attitudes of this period & locale are required to follow the nuance of both films, but especially this Part 2, since the hero's youthful adventures and rites of passage of Part 1 have been replaced by a more "us vs. them" militant approach. Scene after scene depicts our risk-everything protagonists against some truly evil defenders of the status quo. In terms of audience sympathies, it's ATLAS SHRUGGED turned on its head, as evil capitalists use the state machinery to imprison or kill underground union movement participants. (Ironic indeed that Jerzy would oppose the union-generated Solidarity cause 25 years later.)
SPOILER ALERT:
New cast member Lucyna Winnicka is very impressive in an Earth Mother role of Madzia, inspiring to the adult Nowak (as hero Szczesny), and tending to her true love, a large but portable printing press fondly known as Julian, from which revolutionary pamphlets and fliers are produced. I was amused to see "Julian" referred to as a mysterious person through the first half of PHRYGIAN, not unlike the dangling suspense gimmick "Who Is John Galt?" of ATLAS SHRUGGED, but its resolution as a printing press, not a romantic rival for Szczesny to worry about, was a wonderful thematic touch by author Igor Newerly.
I had to sit through ATLAS as part of my weekly Saturday film group, so I would like to force the Ayn Rand fanatics to see this diptych as a useful correction to their ignorant notions about the "evil of unions". The case for collective action, in the face of tyranny, is made forcefully in these classic Polish films.
Climax is a wrenching, violent confrontation with the armed authorities, who storm our heroes' barricades ruthlessly at film's conclusion. But Szcyzesny remains unbowed, true to his ideals and fighting on.
A master stylist of such great movies as MOTHER JOAN OF THE ANGELS?, PHAROAH and MADDALENA, Kawalerowicz adds enough exotic detail to keep even as emphatic a script as PHRYGIAN alive. Strangest sequence is straight out of Tod Browning's classic FREAKS (I'm sure it wasn't available in Poland in the '50s, however), when a group of "lizards", radically deformed children who were victimized by the unregulated pollution emitted by greedy industrialists, are seen crawling along in sinister fashion while Madzia and Szczesny are having a romantic picnic.
I watched both halves, making for 4 hours total, via POLart DVD this past weekend and was rewarded by the careful, detailed direction of Jerzy Kawalerowicz at the beginning of his career. He's one of my favorite directors, despite his anti-Solidarity stance which later irrevocably hurt his reputation.
Title refers to the heroine, an amateur fortune-teller, reading our hero Jozef Nowak's palm, telling him he was born under that star. There is no such star, but it's her reference to the Paris Commune, a forerunner of the communist and union struggle this film is about, set in Poland pre-WW II.
Some knowledge of the history and attitudes of this period & locale are required to follow the nuance of both films, but especially this Part 2, since the hero's youthful adventures and rites of passage of Part 1 have been replaced by a more "us vs. them" militant approach. Scene after scene depicts our risk-everything protagonists against some truly evil defenders of the status quo. In terms of audience sympathies, it's ATLAS SHRUGGED turned on its head, as evil capitalists use the state machinery to imprison or kill underground union movement participants. (Ironic indeed that Jerzy would oppose the union-generated Solidarity cause 25 years later.)
SPOILER ALERT:
New cast member Lucyna Winnicka is very impressive in an Earth Mother role of Madzia, inspiring to the adult Nowak (as hero Szczesny), and tending to her true love, a large but portable printing press fondly known as Julian, from which revolutionary pamphlets and fliers are produced. I was amused to see "Julian" referred to as a mysterious person through the first half of PHRYGIAN, not unlike the dangling suspense gimmick "Who Is John Galt?" of ATLAS SHRUGGED, but its resolution as a printing press, not a romantic rival for Szczesny to worry about, was a wonderful thematic touch by author Igor Newerly.
I had to sit through ATLAS as part of my weekly Saturday film group, so I would like to force the Ayn Rand fanatics to see this diptych as a useful correction to their ignorant notions about the "evil of unions". The case for collective action, in the face of tyranny, is made forcefully in these classic Polish films.
Climax is a wrenching, violent confrontation with the armed authorities, who storm our heroes' barricades ruthlessly at film's conclusion. But Szcyzesny remains unbowed, true to his ideals and fighting on.
A master stylist of such great movies as MOTHER JOAN OF THE ANGELS?, PHAROAH and MADDALENA, Kawalerowicz adds enough exotic detail to keep even as emphatic a script as PHRYGIAN alive. Strangest sequence is straight out of Tod Browning's classic FREAKS (I'm sure it wasn't available in Poland in the '50s, however), when a group of "lizards", radically deformed children who were victimized by the unregulated pollution emitted by greedy industrialists, are seen crawling along in sinister fashion while Madzia and Szczesny are having a romantic picnic.
