Walesa. Czlowiek z nadziei

It was in the post-WWII, Stalinist, Communist, Cold War, era, that the Polish Director Andrzej Wajda set his 1977 film 'Man of Marble'. Remarkably it was made in the Communist-era. The era was post-Stalinist and so the earlier Stalinist setting of the film helped get it past the censors. It starred Jerzy Radziwilowicz and Krystyna Janda. The fictional story of the era was told via the making of a film, found-footage material, and interviews. All put together and filmed in such a way as to be totally believable. A great film.

This reviewer, having had the chance to see the film in the years shortly after it was released, being impressed with the film, and following political events in Poland, was excited to hear of a sequel. This was called 'Man of Iron' (1981).

'MoI' picked up where 'MoM' ended. It too starred JZ and KJ. Similar in style to the previous film, it brought the fictional story, that dramatized, fictionalized, and mirrored, real life events, and brought them up to that present day era.

Now Director Andrjez Wajda has made a third film which can perhaps be viewed as the final part in what is now a trilogy. It is titled 'Walesa. Man of Hope' in the anglicized form. Film was shown in Polish with English sub-titles. Using the technique of an interview, it then tells the story to the audience via flashbacks for much of the film. 'W.MoH' covers some of the same ground as 'MoI', however this is not a fictional story but is the true story of Lech Walesa. Incidentally perhaps, the title of the Lech Walesa autobiography is 'A Way of Hope'.

Robert Wieckiewicz is Lech Walesa. I do not say that lightly. He seems to capture the character and the mannerisms perfectly. The younger Walesa is attractive, arrogant and cocky. He is uneducated but technically minded. He is not bookish but is a good talker. As the younger Lech grows older, RW continues to convince in the role.

Agnieszka Grochowska is Danuta Walesa. She too convinces as we see her age during the film. Her husband is a man committed to a cause. She shows what it is like to be married to such a man.

Poland is a communist state. The Polish United Workers' Party, aka the Communist Party, was in theory the organized vanguard of the proletarians. In reality it did not lead, but rather oppressed the workers. Poland was not a workers' state but a police-state. Even the unions were part of the oppressive state apparatus rather than genuine representatives of the workers. They were merely stooge unions. All this is shown well in the film. Film shows how individuals have to navigate their way around the brutal and oppressive police-state. As Andrzej Wajda had to compromise, negotiate, and navigate his way around, to get 'MoM' made, so too did everybody else in Poland. All were touched by the police-state and had to react as they thought best at the time.

Communist theory is that individuals do not matter and that only economic forces and class-struggle are important in changing history. Others can point to individuals that have changed history. The film shows well, most particularly in one scene, the truly squalid life style of the workers. Into this mix came, though just touched on in this film, Karol Wojtyla. On the 16/10/78 he became Pope John Paul II. Be it economic forces, or individuals, that changed history, it was clear that here in Poland a struggle was taking place.

Lech Walesa was at the heart of this struggle. We see him trying to work for his cause. These days we are familiar with revolutions organized by social-networking sites. In those days the underground had a much more primitive underground way of communicating. The samizdat scenes in the film, enable Director Andrzej Wajda to incorporate a brief scene from the film 'MoI' with the actors JR and KJ. Thus does art imitate life and does that life incorporate the art too. As we discovered in 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' (1962), "When the legend becomes the fact, print the legend!" The film covers most of the important dates, events, and facts. Bar one. On the 13/5/81 there was an assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II. It is now generally accepted who instigated this plot. However this does not seem to have had any bearing on events later. Academics, historians, and others, now generally accept that the 'Brezhnev Doctrine', a publicly stated position since 1968, though one that merely reiterated previous policy, eg. in 1956, that 'Brezhnev Doctrine' was not going to be enforced.

'W.MoH' is able to stand alone as a film. If you wish to view it in a wider context, then 'MoM', then 'MoI', should be viewed first in that chronological order. However it is not necessary. This is a great stand-alone film. Greater context is not needed to appreciate and enjoy this film.

After Pope John Paul II, Lech Walesa is perhaps the second most famous Pole in the world. This film is a great tribute to Lech Walesa.

A great director has made a great film about a great man. As such it is a fitting monument to both of them.

The Poles have been accused of being heroic and ungovernable. They are guilty as charged.

Great film. True story. 10/10.

At the outset, Walesa: Man of Hope is not an ordinary film. It is one of the best examples of Polish director Mr.Andrzej Wajda's unending talent and enormous cinematographic vision. The best thing about this film is how does one dramatize real life incidents to create a biopic which is both entertaining and rich in details. It is because of this quality that the film is so tightly structured that while watching it, one doesn't even realize how 128 minutes have passed. The film finds its origin in a detailed interview conducted by noted Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci. She takes the help of an interpreter (Italian-Polish) in order to ask important questions to Mr.Lech Walesa related to his turbulent life. What is of interest is that not only she asks pertinent questions but also receives candid answers. The manner in which these questions and answers are represented on the screen speak volumes about Mr.Andrzej Wajda's method of filmmaking. He goes to a relatively distant past to reveal unknown facets about a man who would become hugely famous after a decade. Polish actor Robert Wieckiwicz is extremely ideal in his role as Lech Walesa-one of the most famous Polish citizens whose name is known even to many young schoolchildren all over the world.Lastly,Walesa:Man of hope is not a film.It is pure history in making about a person who changed the destiny of a whole nation.

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.

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.

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.