User Reviews

This movies is not well edited but it is important movie to see. It shows Polish Nationalists /Fascists unhappy with the elected first President of Poland. It shows Polish antisemitism in governmment and in the streets. Jews as usual are stereotyped and portrayed with their beards and coats. Movie is kind of slow but I was glad that I saw it.

I saw the movie at a theater. I went out with friends and mistakingly bought tickets for it. It was excruciating. If the pace had been any slower, it would have played in reverse. I had seen plenty of German and French movies; suddenly they all seemed like Hollywood action blockbusters. The piling of stereotype upon stereotype, of political clichés and populist propaganda was suffocating. This will sound sarcastic, but the absolutely best part of the film was the funeral procession; almost the whole of Chopin's Funeral March was played. The change of pace made me almost dizzy. It was the final proof that States should never merge art and political agendas. In retrospective, we had fun: it's been more than two decades and we still cheer "We did it for Poland!" at friends reunions.

Jerzy Kawalerowicz was a great Polish filmmaker, his Quo Vadis is still a remarkable piece of work. And then, this is a great topic to show - the 5-day presidency of Gabriel Narutowicz, short and tragic, in the post-war Poland of 1922, with its high hopes, abandoned hopes, betrayed hopes and shattered dreams. The movie could have been a great period piece. But, Jerzy did it and did it terribly slow, badly, boring and almost universally cliché'd. I made myself watch it all, but these 2 hours were a dull, endless ordeal. What you have here is talk, more talk, some great historical figures talk, debates, talk, election, some sudden action with snowballs throwing, more talk, endless debates, talk again, some sudden action with pistols and several men killed (even that was slow and messy, and badly edited), then - you name it - more talk, and then murder (it is not a spoiler, you know the movie title), then funeral, then some talk again. Yawn. Very boring. You almost wish somebody on the screen throw a blasphemy or make some obscene gesture. Nope. The painfully slow tempo and ocean of talks make the film meaningless bloat. Sad, but back in 1977 Jerzy failed and made a poor film.