Joanna

Poland is popping out potential classics lately. This one is no different. In world war II occupied Poland the life of Joanna, a lonely woman waiting for her husband to return while getting by on odd jobs, drastically changes when she finds a Jewish girl hiding in a church. In a world where nobody can be trusted the roles of enemies and allies continually shift.

Wonderfully filmed in pale colours with eye for detail. It shows exceptionally well how average people become heroes with acts of kindness and how mistrust and fear during war time makes people do the most horrendous things.

This is an amazingly beautiful movie. I do agree with the other two viewers' comments on this wonderfully scripted, directed, performed Polish movie. The tones of this movie are reserved in classic blue and green, the lighting is perfectly natural, giving you an realistic pessimistic feeling of that dreary era when Poland was occupied by the German Nazi. The loneliness of the heroine and that cute little girl are a beautiful unity of consolation and humanity. I was amazed by the subtle touch of the performances of all the Polish actors, they are so natural under a very good director. The romance developed from the house raid also looked so logic and natural, a wonderful scenario. The actress who played Joanna should be awarded with some kind best performing artist, so good and so convincing as a lonely, kind, yet so strong woman. Love her great performance so much. I also noticed that she's the fastest walking woman in any movie that involved any woman who had to walk along city streets, so fast, flowing like gliding on water. Hiding a little Jewish girl in Nazi Poland not just courage, generosity and kindness but luck, pure luck.

Overall a good story. Well directed, with great cinematography, cinematography with subdued mood, one that's not detracting from the picture but enriching it.

In few instances however (especially in the opening scenes) the director rushed too much info at the viewer, trying to explain the circumstances, trying to get the story rolling. Instead - the viewer would have been better served having to wait (to delay) the discovery of the few pertaining details that wove to create the story.

After the movie we've met with the director who, despite his broken English, vigorously defended, what most people found to be a gloomy, uninspiring ending. In his own words he viewed it as "open ended ending".

It's very hard to find a movie which is so heartfelt and mesmerizing. Kudos to the director and whole cast and crew for such an amazing movie. Was never a fan or hater of Hitler but after watching this movie I realized that if his action would have brought such atrocities to a simple little girl then its better to have an opinion than never. About this movie, great directing except the ending could have had lots of possibilities. The cast was very good and for the little girl Sara Knothe.. hat's off girl. The story was 9 out of 10 as I rated already. This is indeed a kind of movie to recommend to other people.