I watched "Mala Matura 1947" (Little Matura 1947) mostly because of the many big names involved in it (director Janusz Majewski and actors like Artur Zmijewski, Olgierd Lukaszewicz, Marek Kondrat, and many others). Another very interesting fact was that the film was partly autobiographical for the director Janusz Majewski, who was born in 1931. But for me, the story in the film did not offer anything new, neither in the autobiographical layer nor in the context of the post-war history of Poland. A deeply polarized society was shown, where the good side was the pre-war intelligentsia and the bad side was the communists and their sympathizers. For me, this is a somewhat idealized and simplified image, and even if I have much more sympathy for the opposition, I believe that active resistance only makes sense if it has a chance of success. The plot takes place in 1947, but it was already in February 1945, at the Yalta Conference, that it was decided that Poland would fall under the Soviet zone of influence. So the powerful Home Army (AK) was dissolved already on 19.01.1945. I think that during this period most Poles, even if they did not have the slightest sympathy for communism, simply wanted to survive, because not everyone could leave the country and armed resistance was just a senseless waste of human life. However, this majority was not shown in the film. Despite everything, I don't regret watching "Little Matura 1947". As usual with Janusz Majewski, we see in the film an incredible care in showing the realities of the time and attention to detail, even if Poland in 1947 looks a bit too nice and too good. It was very interesting for me to look at what high school teaching used to look like. And as I already mentioned, you can enjoy the acting of many famous actors.
