by ·Comments Off on War of the Worlds: Next Century (1981, Piotr Szulkin)

The title and premise sound exciting, but the movie is a sweaty bewigged newscaster (Roman Wilhelmi of Zulawski’s Chopin biopic The Blue Note, with Robert Picardo vibes) being tormented by everyone, including martians, who look like silver-spraypainted oompa loompas in puffy coats. Decaloguists Krystyna Janda and Jerzy Stuhr get a big scene each. The most believable detail is that the biggest music act in the country is called The Instant Glue. Gotta watch the blu extras and learn more about the music. Dedicated to H.G. and Orson Well(e)s, so in addition to finishing Szulkin’s Apocalypse Tetralogy I can add this to my ongoing Orson project.

Any government building during covid:

by ·Comments Off on O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization (1985, Piotr Szulkin)

Stratified society in a post-apoc bunker, Jerzy Stuhr is a fixer who goes everywhere, sees everyone, and knows that the bunker is on the verge of physical collapse and the ark that’s supposed to arrive to save us all doesn’t exist. As great as the others I’ve seen by Szulkin.

by ·Comments Off on Golem (1980, Piotr Szulkin)

Paranoid kafkaesque man is being given the runaround, everyone seems to know more about him than he knows about himself. The commentary notes the “sense of profound gaslighting” he experiences, but I let myself down by only playing the first 15 minutes of it and barely got out of the historical background section. Besides his mixed-up identity situation, our guy Pernat (the lead cop in Ga-Ga) gets involved in a murder conspiracy, and gets abducted by a scary ophthalmologist.

Goin to the movies:

USA 2025:

Krystyna Janda starred in everything (Interrogation, Mephisto, Man of Iron, Dekalog 2)

It was already pretty Brazil-reminiscent, then this guy rappels in:

by ·Comments Off on Ga-ga: Glory to the Heroes (1986, Piotr Szulkin)

Unflappable prisoner is sent from one horrid planet to another, his mission to plant a flag claiming the new world for humanity. But this place has received “heroes” from space before and has a ritual for dealing with them: they’re given booze and prostitutes, encouraged to commit crimes, then sentenced to sitting on long sharp pole. At his first stop, hero Daniel Olbrychski (great, of The Tin Drum) is attacked by a severed arm and served fingers instead of hotdogs, then his preferred girl has been replaced by an annoying new one, so he plots to find his original girl and exit this shitty planet. Inspirational, I’ll have to check out more by Szulkin. Having just rewatched Crimes of the Future, I appreciate when a sci-fi movie makes do with a minimum of shabby locations. Everyone here has also been in Wajda and Kieslowski movies, particularly the hero’s handler Jerzy Stuhr.