Andrzej Zulawski - The Masterpieces of Polish Cinema

The Masterpieces of Polish Cinema
Andrzej Zulawski

Studio: SPI International
Number of disks: 3
Condition: Brand New, Sealed, Mint
Total time: 427 minutes
Language version: Polish
Subtitles: English
Region: 0 (PAL). European or multi-system DVD player is required to see this DVD.

Content:

DVD 1

Trzecia czesc nocy (The Third Part of the Night)

Plot: Set during the occupation of Poland during World War II. Some German soldiers, slaughter a woman, her son and daughter-in-law. The husband and his father escape by being in the forest. The young man decides to join the resistance but at the first meeting Gestapo kills his go-between and chase him. During his escape he gets into an apartment of a pregnant woman and helps her with the childbirth. He works in the typhus center where he is guinea pig for lice after being immunized to make more vaccine. He goes to the hospital to end a misery of a man mistaken by him and tortured where he seems to see his own body and is finally reconciled with himself.

DVD 2

Diabel (The Devil)

Plot: During the Prussian army's invasion to Poland in 1793, a young Polish nobleman Jakub is saved from the imprisonment by a stranger who wants in return to obtain a list of Jakub's fellow conspirators. Following his mysterious saviour across the country, Jakub sees the overall chaos and moral corruption including his father's death and his girlfriend's betrayal. Being apparently demented by what he has seen, he commits a number of seemingly motiveless and gory killings.

DVD 3

Na srebrnym globie (On the Silver Globe)

Plot: A small group of cosmic explorers, including a woman, leaves Earth to find freedom and start a new civilization. They do not realize that within themselves they carry the end of their own dream. They eventually die one by one, while their children revert to a primitive native culture, creating new myths and a new god. Some time later, a space bureaucrat running from a broken heart, arrives and finds colonizer's descendants enslaved by birdmonstern called Cherns. Society is divided into a numerous classes, and everyone is waiting for the arrival of a messiah. The newcomer is considered a suitable candidate and for some time he lives as a god. In the end he is crucified by his people.

About the director:

Andrzej Zulawski was born in Lvov, Ukraine (22 November 1940); then he moved with his father Miroslaw to Czechoslovakia and later to Poland. In the late 1950s, he studied cinema in France. In the 1960s, he was an assistant of the famous Polish film director Andrzej Wajda. His feature debut "Trzecia czesc nocy" (1971) was an adaptation of his father's novel. His second feature "Diabel" (1972) was prohibited in Poland, and Zulawski went to France. After the success of his French debut "L' important c'est d'aimer" (1975) in 1975, he returned to Poland where he spent two years in making "Na srebrnym globie" (1988). The work on this film was brutally interrupted by the authorities. When the shooting of "Na srebrnym globie" was almost completed, communist Polish Ministry of Culture ordered to stop the filming and to destroy all related materials. The negative was thankfully saved, and during the liberalization of the political regime in Poland in 1986-1987, Zulawski returned to the country and managed to complete the film from the spared material. This raw product was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, but was misjudged as a failed pre-Spielberg ian attempt on super production. After that, Zulawski moved to France where became known for his highly artistic, controversial, and very violent films. Zulawski is well known for his ability to discover and "rediscover" actresses. Romy Schneider, Isabelle Adjani and Sophie Marceau played their best parts in his films.

Andrzej Zulawski has been called a visionary, emotional, and violent. "I came from the French cinematic school of real thinking; and I believe that, with few exceptions, acting is a female occupation" (AZ). Since his film debut he was universally acclaimed as one of the most talented and controversial Polish directors. "I only want to film stories which have something excessive about them" (AZ). In his films Zulawski explores spiritual boundaries and moral capacities of man, society and religion, and the restrictions of liberty of the individual human being in confrontation with the society.