L'héroïne de Gdansk

Volker Schlondorff has directed a gripping account of the slow progress of the worker's movement in Poland over roughly 20 years, from the discontent of the Sixties to the open rebellion of the Eighties, eventually led by Lech Walesa. The Lenin shipyards in Gdansk are filmed to look appropriately forbidding--the accident that claims the lives of 21 workers in 1970 is very well staged. The cynicism of the Party bosses, the apathy and drunkenness of the workers and the passion of Agnieszka, the crane operator who provides much of the impetus for change: these things are brought out vividly.

Katharina Thalbach gives a fine performance as the worker who's not going to take any more, Andrzej Chyra is very good as Walesa and Pope John Paul II puts in an appearance via news footage.

An unbelievable movie experience! ...But the film is not, nor does it claim to be, an account of actual historical events.

I was born in Poland in 1970, and having lived there until 1988 - I believe (despite the fact I was merely a child at the time); I believe that the movie portraits an accurate picture of life in Poland and prevailing political scene of those years.

Being a child of those years - I was surprised how little time was devoted in the movie to the character of Lech Walensa, who for me (living in Poland in the 80s) WAS Solidarity. But in THIS movie Walensa is only a secondary character. Instead, the movie is about "a woman". A woman (or two women) who opened the door for Walensa, a woman who started it all. A woman who, almost singlehandedly, instigated an opposition towards the Establishment. An opposition which subsequently lead to a revolution that eventually changed Central and Eastern Europe.

The biggest complaint against the movie comes from those who knew the people and events first hand. The complaints pertain to discrepancies between the movie and historical events. Having seen the movie, and having caught-up (a little) on those historical facts on the internet I believe the director chose to alter several facts for two reasons; 1) to allow himself/herself a freedom of artistic expression---and protect himself/herself from overbearing scrutiny. And 2) to create additional drama and tension in the movie that work very effectively. In support of this opinion I would like to point to two examples where the movie differs from actual events: 1) Agnieszka - the heroine in the movie - is a compilation of lives and actions of two women. And 2) The son of Anna Walentynowicz, in real life never wore a uniform (but in the movie this little alteration strikes gold).

Overall - very impressive and very important movie.

I've heard some about Poland's Labor Solidarity movement that eventually brought down the Soviet puppet government, but Volker Schlondorff's "Strajk - Die Heldin von Danzig" tells the story in detail. The movie focuses on Agnieszka Kowalska, chosen by the union leader as a heroine of labor in 1961 Gdansk. But it soon becomes clear that the people in power have merely done this to pacify her. In 1970, several workers get killed in an accident that the authorities try to whitewash. This leads to a massive strike that the government suppresses with tanks. But by the end of the 1970s, Karol Wojtyla has become Pope John Paul II, and Agnieszka has allied with Lech Walesa to form the country's first independent trade union. A quarter of a century later, Agnieszka wonders how things will turn out.

Probably the main thing that I derived from this film was what I derived from the German movie "The Lives of Others": the similarities between the Eastern and Western Blocs easily outweighed the differences. The Soviet Union, under the banner of "Marxism" took over Eastern Europe and installed puppet governments; just like how the US, under the banner of "freedom" took over Latin American and installed puppet governments. Moreover, following the 1970 strike, the authorities show pictures of people on TV and tell viewers to report anyone familiar; much like how Joe McCarthy and his people encouraged Americans to brand people as communists. When the government denies payment to the widows of workers killed in the accident, that reminded me of how the Bush administration used Hurricane Katrina to try and repeal a decades-old labor law in New Orleans. No matter how you look at it, when you look at the policies in any right-wing extremist society (no matter what it claims to be), they all sound exactly the same.

But anyway, this is a great movie. Poland has certainly released some good ones.