Der Mann aus Eisen

Typing in a correctly spelt 'Man of Iron' into a DVD search-engine and immediately every conceivable configuration of Robert Downing Jnr's "Iron Man" comes up ....presuming that we are both illiterate morons AND couldn't possibly want a 1981 film about Poland - made in Poland.

Even the most news-shy hermit could fail to have heard something about Solidarity, Gdansk and Lech Walesa's rallying, admittedly 30 years ago but now is a time to reflect, with the dust settled.

Like many, I was already familiar with Poland's most well-known (at least in the "west") director Krzysztof Kieslowski but Andrzej Wajda was a name I'd heard but not seen his work. I'm always keen to see movies, especially long ones made about social issues by a native of that country and reviews were all favourable. Buying this Mr Bongo DVD, I was not disappointed.

Some other reviewers have gone into detail about the political ins & outs but it was the film itself I primarily wanted to see and I want to immediately commend both the casting and performance of Marian Opania, as Winkiel, who excellently conveys a very believable TV journalist whose lifestyle may be typical of the profession. We witness and share his hopes and anxieties, from squeezing out the cloth he used to mop up the vodka from the bottle he'd just broken into a toothbrush cup, his other mental and physical angsts and the very real situations of power- cuts and strikes that affect everything, such as the phones.

As Winkiel gets down to the task of reporting on the uprising from the inside, especially of the charismatic leader of the striking shipbuilders, Maciek Tomczyk, whose father was killed in the riots of 1970 and whose wife was detained. As the journalist interviews those around and who know Tomczyk scenes are recreated, including the occasional use of actual news footage which illustrate the various strands leading up to the strike.

Obviously, a lot more than this goes into a riveting two and a half hour film but hopefully, with your appetite whetted, you'll now want to try it yourself. There's a whole canvas here on which Poland is painted and it's an absolutely fascinating one, but still well enough made to be both informative and entertaining.

Highly recommended for those who, like me, want to expand their World Cinema repertoire beyond the easily available/popular but still want to play safe as this is a universal film that just happens to made in the Polish language. If the subject matter is of particular interest too, well, you know it's one for your online shopping cart!

What you need to know about "Man of Iron":

1. Palme D'Or 1981

2.Wajda's sequel to "Man of Marble"

3.Sweet-a** performances from Poland's acting elite

****NOTE**** Ok, you really do have to have a Warsaw-pact historical/political background when approaching this film, because it's compactly interwoven into flashback sequences recalling various anti-commie events (worker's movements and so on). And yes, that's mustachioed Lech Walesa making a cameo. If you have no idea what the Solidarnost movement was read up before watching this. Of course, the emotional and thus universal element is present (Maciek and Agnieska's love, etc) but this is mostly a story of survival and determination in the face of corruption and political hostilities. Polish people took amazing steps against their government as early as the late 60s, and here we see the triumphant and climactic finish to these efforts. Wajda incorporates interesting documentary footage within the film to make it more effective and appealing to his audience.

See "Man of Iron" and feel nostalgia for the times when Eastern Europe saw change as a forthcoming and hopeful force. Classic.

This film movement, while in no way the most important film movement artistically, considerably helped morally support and unite the Poles into a decade long, almost nation-wide rebellion against the Communist party which bloomed into the freeing of the Polish state from Soviet rule. This was a catalyst for the break-up of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the end of the cold war, and a new stability in Europe, and indeed the world. Only taking this into account can one watch "Czlowiek z Zelaza" and truly appreciate how powerful this film is.

A radio journalist sets out to discredit the leader of a strike at the Gdansk shipyard in 1980. Director Andrzej Wajda's 1981 film is a prize winner and one of the most celebrated Polish films of the late 20th century, whose screenplay by Aleksander Scibor-Rylski continues the stories of characters featured in the slightly better 'Man of Marble'. This 2 and a half hour film brings the story right up to date(with flashbacks to another strike in 1970) with the then current real life headlines in Poland of strikes,Solidarity and martial law, which seemed to go on for ever in the early 1980s. The central character Tomczyk has some similarities to Lech Walesa(who appears as himself in this film),in a film where art imitates life, or life imitates art. We had an Iron Lady so why shouldn't Poland have a Man of Iron?

There's just one thing that strikes me as odd and keeps me from giving the film ten stars. The wonderful protagonist of Man Of Marble, Agnieszka, is turned here into a stereotypical, boring wife/girlfriend. At a time of great historical importance , when issues she deeply cared about were the talk of Europe, all she finds time to discuss with a reporter who visits her at the detention center is romance. I'm having a hard time picturing the dedicated, driven and idealistic young person we know from Man Of Marble gasp unintelligibly about a child when her husband is on strike with Lech Walesa. A needless and surprising flaw in an otherwise great film.