Walesa. Czlowiek z nadziei

WALESA: MAN OF HOPE tells the story of the rise and rise of Lech Walesa, who led the Solidarity movement in the Seventies and Eighties, and helped bring about a revolution in Poland. The story is a familiar one of an iron-willed person whose commitment to the cause overrides everything - even his family. Despite being jailed on numerous occasions, and threatened with everything, including lifetime imprisonment, Walesa (Robert Wieckiewicz) remains sternly committed to his cause, and thereby helps bring about change in a rapidly disintegrating communist regime. Wieckiewicz's performance is just wondrous; he remains utterly convincing in the role, showing the weak as well as the strong sides of the character as he tries to bring up a family of six children while showing loyalty to his fellow-workers. Structurally speaking, Wajda's film follows a familiar path; we are encouraged to sympathize with Walesa, even if we doubt his methods sometimes, as someone who genuinely fought on behalf of the workers he tried to represent. For those unacquainted with the nuances of Polish history during this period, WALESA: MAN OF HOPE offers a useful lesson. Its message remains as significant today as it did three decades ago; even today, there are those - in the Soviet Union in particular - who are resisting the authorities' attempts to suppress them for similar motives. WALESA: MAN OF HOPE offers hope for them as well as for anyone pursuing the cause of freedom.

a film by Andrzey Wayda. for many viewers could be enough for guarantee a remarkable movie. but a film about Walesa by Wajda is more than a good movie.certainly, it represents a real event. sure, first for subject. than for acting. and for photography. it is not a homage but a tool for discover a man behind masks, rules, verdicts and definitions. because Walensa by Wajda is an ordinary person, fragile and angry, vulnerable and religious, fascinating and human. his humanity, his deep humanity does it one of remarkable leaders and the portrait reminds the Biblical heroes for the force of fight and for profound faith. for me, a man from East, this film is, in a special form, a masterpiece. not for itself but for the splendid art to remember a reality who is basis for contemporary society from a part of Europe. and, sure, as exercise of memory. because, after two decades and a half is not easy to see the reality only as show , ignoring its roots.

An amazing depiction of an amazing charismatic person who risked his own life to change history of his country and he did it! Being a simple worker he successfully challenged the communist system. The movie shows Walesa for who he really was: cocky, self absorbed, but very brave and unselfish at the same time. His predominant fight was that of freedom and better life for all Polish people. Dealing with such serious issues, the movie contains a huge dose of humour showing Walesa as a funny person. The movie is quite fast paced, keeps you engaged as well as gives you a history lesson that's not boring. A definite must see! especially for those under the age of 30 who don't remember those events.

The formal opening of the 25th Polish Film Festival in America played to a packed house. Dignitaries, filmmakers, and sponsors from Chicagoland's Polish community and from Poland lent an air of glamour to opening night, as movie fans eagerly awaited the screening of legendary Polish director Andrzej Wajda's "Walesa: Man of Hope." The master film director himself was given the festivals "Wings" award for lifetime achievement in cinema, and he sent a video greeting that served as the perfect introduction to the film.

An Oscar winner and frequent nominee in the foreign language film category, 87-year-old Wajda said that his latest film completes a trilogy begun in 1977 with "Man of Marble" and continued in 1981 with "Man of Iron." An unfiltered portrayal of Lech Walesa, the Polish shipyard worker whose leadership led to the fall of the Soviet Union, the two-hour film stars Robert Wieckiewicz, who transforms himself into a startlingly convincing representation of the leader of the Solidarity movement. Wajda masterfully mixes news footage from the period with the fictionalized version of the Nobel Peace Prize winner's life and times. This is a compelling film that neither idolizes nor demonizes Walesa, who ultimately became president of Poland but soon tumbled from grace and revealed himself to be something less than a giant among men. It is the story of a man who fulfilled his destiny and changed the world through determination and a gift for tough, direct speech.

Biopics can often be dull affairs and 'Walesa, Man of Hope' does not initially inspire, with its corny subtitle and hackneyed framing (the man giving an interview in which eh looks back on his life). But Lech Walesa was (and is) an genuinely interesting man who moreover was cursed to live in interesting times: a not-so-humble ordinary man who more or less appointed himself to lead a group of striking miners in Poland, a rabble-rouser yet a realist, and arguably the leading global symbol of resistance to the late-era communist dictatorships in eastern Europe. Film-make Andrzej Wadja lived through this time himself, and while his portrait of Walesa is compelling though simplistic (his strengths, it is suggested, did not lie in his subtlety of character), we also see exactly how the regime retained power. Some of my favourite moves were made by Kieslowski in the hopeless aftermath of the period of martial law imposed in the early 1980s; this film tells us more about why that martial law was imposed, and also, why the hopelessness it inspired was ultimately misplaced. The Communist officials come across as less pure evil, but as ordinary people themselves, who've talked themselves into a position where they perceive they have no choice but to run a broken and oppressive system. Walesa challenged them and ultimately was a major force for change. And Wadja's film is a convincing portrait of the man and his times.