The best Józef Nowak’s drama movies

Two sketches covering episodes from the World War II. In the first novel, "Scherzo alla polacca", a shrewd son, trying to preserve his skin, ultimately becomes a hero and finds a reason for fighting. He initially tries to avoid underground training to avoid the Warsaw uprising. His drunkenness, disregard for safety and cowardice when sober stated with humorous effect come out as something sane in the world gone mad. His will to survive is more acceptable than any desire for heroic death. The second novel, "Ostinato lugubre", details a hopeless attempt at escape from a prison camp by a man who can no longer stand the confinement and idiocy of the professional soldiers trying to keep up the military preneses in prison. Nevertheless, his escape boosts the morale of his fellow prisoners, while the "escapee" lies hidden from Germans and comrades alike." From Polish Cinema Database

In 1950, at night, a passenger train kills a man on the tracks. He is Orzechowski, an engineer since 1914. An inquiry immediately follows. Testimony takes the form of flashbacks. Tuszka, the station master, believes Orzechowski was a saboteur; at least one on the inquiry panel agrees. Zapora, the young engineer on the train that hit Orzechowski, gives more complicated testimony about the dead man - stiff-necked, proud, imperious, critical of Zapora and other younger workers. The signalman at the crossing where Orzechowski died also testifies. Can the panel arrive at the truth in a world where workers unite, inferior coal is a badge of honor, and the old order is suspect?

With the second part of his Cellulose Diptych, award-winning director Jerzy Kawalerowicz returns to protagonist Szczesny, now a full-fledged, middle-aged communist militant in pre-war Poland. Based on the writings of Igor Newerly, Kawalerowicz's epic chronicles the romance between Szczesny and the charismatic Madzia, as the ill-fated pair fall in love amid the social and political upheaval of their homeland.

At the end of World War Two, Polish people move to the western lands vacated by Germans. But some ruthless profiteers pose as government representatives and intend to make off with loot from a deserted town they took over. One honest man stands up against them because he believes these goods belong to the people.