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Director and star of this quirky black comedy Jerzy Stuhr well Illustrates the tedium and blandness of life in a small town with the stark black and white of this film about the peace being disturbed when the chief protagonist adopts a camel from a circus annoying the townsfolk and exacerbating the situation by refusing to let his new friend be exploited for commercial gain. This shows all too well how difficult if not impossible it is to stand out in such a small minded and hypocritical environment. Something I think Jack Nicholson said in `Easy rider` about people being afraid of real freedom springs to mind.

This is a deceptively simple morality tale that punches well above its weight. It's a short film that nonetheless unfolds at an unhurried pace, building by degrees to a sad and beautiful close. The final scene -- an exquisite coda to this clear-eyed essay on human behaviour -- is worth the price of admission alone. The director has handsomely acquitted his debt to Kieslowski's script. It's a great shame that the movie is not currently available on video/DVD.

A good movie, but not an outstanding one. I will not tell anything about the plot; once you know more or less what this film is about, you can basically determine what is going to happen and there is nothing in this movie that could surprise you. I'm not saying this is bad, since this movie was not meant to surprise by sudden action twists. What is really remarkable about this movie is the atmosphere of a small town, which is portrayed perfectly, good acting by both main characters and moments when you literally cannot stop laughing. For example, the group of people protesting in front of main character's house... but there are many others.

What I have to say against this movie is that basically it doesn't say anything new about intolerance. I expected something more than some well-known truths and behaviors and few (then again, maybe not so few) admittedly good laughs. If you like Jerzy Stuhr this is definitely worth watching for his acting alone, but if you don't... well, decide for yourself. For me - 7/10.

I would comment but I couldn't write a better comment then "Beautiful film ... I wish I hadn't seen it ..., 15 June 2004 Author: profhound from Chicago, IL"

It is a beautiful, self critical look at Polish and rather all Human Nature. It shows the power of conformity and social pressure. awesome film.

also a note this film was presented as a laugh out loud funny comedy, and maybe that is what the theaters wanted advertised to get people in the door, and instead I found something better.

Major Credit to the Director for staying true to the writers work, a truly wonderful film

The Communists, in all of Eastern Europe, were strongly xenophobic. The script to this film was written a while ago by Krzysztof Kieslowski and it is an almost ideal symbol for the philosophy of many Poles at the time.

In a clever production move the film, which was probably censored and shelved by the former government, was made to resemble films in the 60s, with its black and white cinematography and "aged" look.

The story starts with a man who imports a camel to his neighborhood and receives plenty of excuses, many of them totally bogus, of why he should get rid of it. The result is a tongue in cheek, though ultimately sad film about the fear of "the different one." 8/10

No MPAA rating: contains no objectionable content