The best Zdzisław Maklakiewicz’s movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Zdzisław Maklakiewicz’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Zdzisław Maklakiewicz.
The Saragossa Manuscript
7.8/10
In the Napoleonic wars, an officer finds an old book that relates his grandfather's story, Alfons van Worden, captain in the Walloon guard. A man of honor and courage, he seeks the shortest route through the Sierra Morena. At an inn, the Venta Quemada, he sups with two Islamic princesses. They call him their cousin and seduce him; he wakes beside corpses under a gallows. He meets a hermit priest and a goatherd; each tells his story; he wakes again by the gallows. He's rescued from the Inquisition, meets a cabalist and hears more stories within stories, usually of love. He returns to Venta Quemada, the women await with astonishing news.
Hotel Pacific
7.2/10
Set in the early 1930s, a young man finds a job as a dishwasher in a hotel and quickly works his way up the ladder. Loosely based on the novel by Henryk Worcell.
How I Unleashed World War II, Part II: Following The Arms
8.1/10
After escaping across Europe from Stalag camp, Dolas's ride to Cyprus is stopped when his ship in sunk by an Italian submarine. Although he and some of his fellow sailors are rescued by an Allied ship, they find themselves conscripted into the French Foreign Legion in Beirut, Dolas becoming a cook.
Brunet wieczorową porą
7.4/10
Modest editor, has shipped his wife and kids for the weekend, and is trying to relax in his house at the outskirts of Warsaw. His quiet evening is only disturbed by the accidental forecast made by a Gypsy woman, that at evening time he will murder a mysterious brunet.
How I Unleashed World War II, Part I: The Escape
On the night of August 31, 1939, Dolas, from a platoon reinforcing a train station on the German border, falls asleep in a train car and unknowingly crosses into Germany. The moment he shoots a German, who he thinks is a saboteur, the German invasion of Poland begins, and Dolas is convinced it was his fault. He is taken to Stalag POW camp, the first destination in his odyssey around Europe.
Boxer
7.1/10
Young boxer studies with a kind, knowing manager, grooming him for the Olympics. He fights the lead boxer, has a brief fling, and gets jailed for beating up a group he feels laughed at him during the drunken spree. But he is rehabilitated and gets a crack at the Olympics where he wins.
Samson
6.3/10
Sampson is one of several Andrzej Wajda films harking back to his youth during the Nazi Occupation of Poland. Many of these concern not only the struggle between good and evil, but also between passive and impassive. The hero is a Jewish youth. He, like his family, has always been silent and undemonstrative in the face of prejudice. Now he stands up for his right to survive, and in so doing represents the fighting spirit that culminated in the 1943 Warsaw Uprising. It was originally titled Samson, but re-spelled as Sampson upon its American release to avoid confusion with a sword-and-sandal epic of the same name.
The Cruise
7.5/10
A stowaway (Stanisław Tym) sneaks aboard a ship departing on a cruise down the Vistula River. The captain takes him for a Communist Party cultural coordinator and the intruder gladly adapts to his new role, immediately setting to work at manipulating the passengers and crew into silly and vaguely humiliating games. Before long, Tym has got everyone under his thumb and created his own comedic dictatorship.
Barrier
6.8/10
A dream-like meditation on post-industrial life in Communist Poland.
Take It Easy
7.5/10
The main characters are the same two quarreling peasant families introduced in "Sami swoi" (Our Folks). The action of the film starts 18 years later. The old quarrels have been forgotten, but new problems keep popping up. They have no successors to inherit the farms. They invent a tricky and clever plan. The young granddaughter is to take over both of the farms after her marriage. Both Kargul and Pawlak have no rest until they carry out the plan. In the end, after numerous adventures and obstacles their cunning intrigue is fulfilled - the young marry and the land remains in the family's hands.
One Room Tenants
6.8/10
A subjective adaptation of a well-known autobiographical novel by Zbigniew Unilowski (screenplay by Wojciech Jerzy Has with dialogues by Stanislaw Dygat). The adventures of the tenants of a sublet room in a Warsaw townhouse inhabited mostly by students and novice writers, presented against the social context of the 1930s.
The Doll
6.9/10
Set in the 19th century Warsaw. The indolence of aristocrats who, secure with their pensions, are too lazy to undertake new business risks, frustrates Wokulski. His ability to make money is respected but his lack of family and social rank is condescended to. Because of his "help" (in secret) to "the doll's" impecunious but influential father, the girl becomes aware of his affection.
Cała naprzód
Hazardziści
6.7/10
Red Rowan
6.4/10
Hydro-Puzzle
7.1/10
Warsaw is mysteriously running out of water during the summer heat wave. This mystery can only be solved by a Polish superhero known as As.
Złote koło
No More Divorces
6.8/10
Three short segments about love.
Leprosy
6.9/10
When Stanislaw Czermien is wrongfully accused of rape and murder, he decides to exonerate himself and track down the real perpetrator. He suspects him to be his own brother, Witold.
The Holy War
6.5/10
To secure their team's success, dedicated football fans (Boleslaw Plotnicki, Mieczyslaw Czechowicz) plot to kidnap their opponents' star player (Andrzej Kopiczynski).
