"Man of Marble" takes place in Poland where a young determined filmmaker, Agnieszka, is making a film for her thesis about one of the Lead Workers from the 1950's, Mateusz Birkut. She combs through the official newsreels of the period and then the films that were never shown to the public. Then, she goes to interview
Birkut's former comrades in search of the man. "Man of Marble" is a political thriller directed by Andrzej Wajda that does an excellent job of showing a government that is trying to escape its own past and a generation that is trying to learn the truth about the history of their country. The movie also shows how propaganda can be used to further the government's goals. Since this movie is critical of Poland's Communist government, then how did it ever get made? I think this is precisely another point of this very fine movie - how a critical movie is made in a non-democratic society. And I thought it was interesting that the filmmaker character in this movie was a woman. This in a time when female filmmakers were especially rare...
October 12, 2005
