Pilsudski

Seeing the low rating of "Pilsudski," I was expecting some bombastic film in the style of "Warsaw Battle 1920". So I was surprised to see a watchable film where I learned some unknown-to-me facts. I admit that I was never that much interested in the personality of Jozef Pilsudski, but I remembered from history texts at school that he was one of the key personalities that helped in establishing the independent Polish state in 1918. I also remembered that he organized a coup in 1926, which overthrew the democratically elected government. Some 500 lives were lost, oppositional leaders were imprisoned, freedom of the press curtailed, and no further elections were held. In spite of some unquestionable achievements of the independent Polish state during the years 1918-1939, the economic gap between Poland and the West was widened. That is why Pilsudski was never my hero. What is the use of so-called "national independence" if it is used for stifling the personal freedom of the citizens?

The movie "Pilsudski" was technically okay to me and kept me interested. Participation of some good and experienced actors like Szyc and Boczarska ensured that the acting was decent and I could concentrate on the story itself. I learned, for example, that Jozef Pilsudski organized acts of terror and had ethically questionable relationships with women. When watching the film, I mostly sided with some of his political opponents and his wife. This work's biggest weakness to me is that the film is rather a set of different quality scenes that don't add up to make some compelling picture. But I appreciate its honesty in trying to show something more realistic than the predominantly bronze image that Pilsudski enjoys nowadays. There is also another dimension to all this. Pope John Paul II, Jozef Pilsudski, and Lech Kaczynski were taken on the banners of the national populist' movement in Poland, and there is a huge number of monuments, squares, and streets throughout the country that are dedicated to them. For example, there are about 840 monuments of Pope John Paul II and around 150 of Lech Kaczynski-in comparison to 14 monuments dedicated to Chopin, 12 to Copernicus, and only 2 to Marie Curie-Sklodowska (with the achievements of the three latter personalities belonging to the heritage of all mankind). National populists' 8 years in power were recently ended with disaster. The rules of democracy were not observed, the legal system was warped, and the scale of corruption and embezzlement of public money was unprecedented in Polish history. The monument example may be a good illustration of how much those people distorted the tradition of their native country too. It will take some years to straighten this out. Currently the secularization in Poland is the fastest in the world, and the question of the legacy of Jozef Pilsudski and Pope John Paul II becomes the hot topic. So I am looking forward to more films about Jozef Pilsudski, Pope John Paul II, Lech Kaczynski, and some other national populist figures, but made in the manner of Monty Python or film director Andrzej Munk (for example, the remake of "Bad Luck" with modern acting techniques and with a 21st-century chapter added).

I was really surprised by how well made this movie was. It had action, drama, some pretty intense petting with no actual sex on screen and it spans over a period of 19 years, starting with the famous escape of Pilsudski from an insane asylum, all the way to the rise to power after the Great War.

We see Pilsudski's family life, his mistress, his men, his struggles with coping with the party he's created kicking him out and with the fight for Poland's independence. Prior to last night, I had very little knowledge of Polish history. I only knew it was a great country, filled with proud people, located on a vast territory west of Germany and East of Russia, who used to split it between them as they saw fit.

When he hovers over a map of the world in one scene, we see how small Poland was at the start of the century. Great empires spanned all around it and the people were living in poor conditions.

Acting was good, scenery was well shot, and I could not shake the feeling that the leading role (Borys) looked like Tom Hardy ( :) )

PS: Cinema was filled with a lot of native Polish people who probably didn't need the subtitles that much but they made the atmosphere something different. Live reaction to situations, gasping, applauding, and generally laughing at all of the funny moments.

Well done.

Poland has for years sat at the fault line between the east and west , between communism and capitalism, between Russia and Germany , between catholic and orthodox . Most of my fellow English countrymen probably know little more than it being the country that Nazi Germany invaded on 1/9/39 thus precipitating WW2.

I like to think I know more but I didn't know about Pilsudski

His rise to power was not unlike that of Ataturk or Castro.

An agitator , a terrorist , a hero , a liberator , a rebel , a survivor , a conundrum .

The biopic was a sensitive portrayal and showed the good and the bad , the affairs , the killings , the hared of an occupying foreign power , the patriotism and the political battles fought along side the physical battles .

In my experience 90% of Polish films far surpass that churned out by Hollywood , long may they continue , don't be frightened of subtitles 10 minutes you'll be reading subconsciously

Well worth seeing , you're feel educated :)

I love Polish films and love Polish history, and I do remember fondly old movie Zamach Stanu, where Marshal Pilsudski is shown as a sly old fox getting back to power. I also like 1920 Bitwa Warszawska where younger Marshal is depicted fighting against Soviet invasion of 1920. Both are great films, so when I heard about this new effort showing the early years of Marshal and his slow rise to power, I jumped at the opportunity. Alas, my initial gladness soon evaporated as the result is a terribly weak, badly filmed, poorly played, especially laughable when seemingly Russian people speak with awful accents, far from Russian speech, and with a very uneven pacing Bad montage and very poor color scheme add to a general feel of horrid amateurish attempt. This could have been a better series of many episodes with better pace, better performance, and better Russian accents, since Russia is so prominent here. Another huge sin of filmmakers is a jumpy tempo, in a hopeless try to embrace too many events at a too shot time span. This only seems as a torn and frayed fabric of disjointed fragments. Borys Szyc is a nice actor but not for this role, he simply does not possess certain necessary charisma, or power to depict such a complicated and ,multi-faceted persona of Marshal. Szyc can goggle his eyes, utter overblown phrases without being a real thing, He sizzles but never bubbles, moans but never means it, speaks but does not deliver. In all, a poor and very weak film of a very low quality, dubious merit and laughable moral. It just does not convince, As a one-timer for students to see how not to shoot serious movies it can hold, otherwise, it never will.