I watched "Anna i wampir" (Anna and the vampire) with great interest knowing that the plot was based on true events that took place in the late 1960s in the Silesian area of Poland. For me, those kinds of movies are always more exciting, and I usually add them one star more than their artistic merits. So the story of the manhunt for Zdzislaw Marchwicki, the most notorious serial killer in Poland's history, also kept me glued to the chair. The film director was Janusz Kidawa who was associated with Silesian area, so he probably remembered the real events. The main role was given to Wirgiliusz Gryn, a popular actor usually playing the roles of secondary characters with mostly plebeian origin. To me, Wirgiliusz Gryn was very authentic in this film and made the character of Captain Jaksa sympathetic and credible. So this was the first and quite exciting dimension of "Anna and the vampire". Another dimension was a very realistic portrait of Silesia in the late 1960s. I don't think that Janusz Kidawa was explicitly trying to show the grim picture of Poland, but he definitely wanted to be realistic and objective. So we have a gloomy landscape polluted by coal mines, grey and ugly streets, people drinking vodka during their work, and the queues in front of shop windows. The picture of Polish militia is also not very flattering, and we can see them making mistakes and blundering on their job. But still they are shown as mostly professionals who want to catch criminals and not hunt for the opposition, which was probably also true. Apart from Wergiliusz Gryn, we can also enjoy the performances of a couple of good actors of that time, like Leon Niemczyk and Jerzy Trela. So I think there are several reasons to take a look at "Anna and the vampire".
