Mala Moskwa

poetic, gentle, delicate, profound, sad, sea of nuances. axis - a love story in cage of Cold War. memories of a Russian officer and questions of his daughter. silhouette of wife. bricks of a cruel political system. and a tale about feelings, basic gestures and dimension of fear. about power of courage and sacrifice as only key of normal things. it is not good movie. just perfect to discover roots of old similar stories. instrument - special beauty of actors, Polish and Russian language, few crumbs of romanticism and picture on a grave. a cross on the grave of a child and cried of a man at Gagarin death. not very much. but more than a film, it is a seed. and a testimony. remember of a time - a long and painful 1968. and occasion to meet, again, map of Poland soul. a woumb, impossibility to forgive, need to present old scares for understand, accept and learn about essence of a nation

a love story. special for the delicate / wise/precise manner to show it. for the inspired trip between past and present, for the convincing portrait of a dramatic episode of Polish recent history .and for the admirable performances. a film as splendid exam of emotions, politic pressure and a dramatic live story, against rules, interdiction and clash between two cultures. în this case, the love story is more than a touching ingredient but the tool for define the essence of a period in precise manner .

The plot blurb on this page gets it wrong: During the Cold War, a local Polish officer and a young Soviet woman wedded to a Soviet officer are drawn together by music. The asymmetry between their countries' position and power are important to the plot, so I don't consider this mix-up trivial. Their affair attracts the attention of the military authorities precisely because of her military connections. Restrictions on the movements of Poles around the Soviet forces forces the couple to maneuver a fair bit to prosecute their affair. Indeed, one subterfuge to circumvent those restrictions lands the officer in trouble that seems disproportional to mere adultery. Although his commanding officers appear to have a modicum of sympathy for him, there is not much they can do in th face of the Soviets. The film is very well done for a melodrama but doesn't rise above the genre.

Although the action of the film takes place in times of war, the film has a very clear romantic "touch" , thanks to photography, music and locations, in contrast to the relentless and ruthless attitude of the Russian military.

Hit the fact that Michal not seem to be aware of the risk to which both are exposed, while Wiera does, so a tension is created due to this contrary behaviour.

Story is told through two timelines, which makes the movie more realistic.

I did not expect the ending, and was ........ surprising.

8/10

Viewed at the 2010 Polish film festival of Los Angeles. A very interesting picture here was Waldemar Krzystek's latest offering, "Little Moscow" ( Mała Moskwa) which takes up the still touchy subject of the stationing of Russian troops on Polish soil during the Cold War years, which amounted almost to a military occupation. The Little Moscow in question was a large Russian garrison near the city of Legnica which was totally off limits to the local Poles, therefore they called it "Mala Moskwa". Numerous scenes demonstrate the disdain the Russians had for their Polish "allies" and the hatred the Poles had for the Russians, knowing that they were covering up atrocities like the massacre of 18,000 Polish POWs in the Katryn forest by the KGB during WWII, and generally regarding Poland as an inferior puppet state. The focus of the story however, based in part on memories of stories told to the director during his youth, is the illicit love affair between the pregnant wife of a diffident long suffering Russian officer and a gallant handsome young Polish cadet. In a flash forward, after the fall of Communism, the now grey haired Russian returns with his grown up daughter some twenty years later to visit the grave of the mother she never knew. At the very end the aging Pole also makes a shadowy entrance and we suspect that he may actually have been her father.

This is a very carefully woven psychological study of four intertwined lives, and actor Leslaw Żurek, now just thirty, who played the Polish officer is one of the leading stars of the new generation of Polish actors. Mr. Żurek appeared in two other films shown here and was present at all screenings to field questions after each -- in fairly good if somewhat halting English! He is definitely an actor for Polish Film buffs to keep an eye on. Director Krzystek lives and works in Wrocław far from the major film scene in Warsaw. He makes few films but all are sharply observed and cleanly directed.. One of his best in the psychological study of a psychotic university professor entitled "Polska Smierc" or Death Polish Stye.