L'amore dimenticato

Forgotten Love is a pre-war Polish epic that belongs in the company of Les Misérables, Dr. Zhivago, and Gone with the Wind, to name a few of the grand stories that depict love, its loss, its renewal, and the effects it has over generations of families and countries. This Netflix third adaptation of a cherished classic novel, The Quack, brings freshness, period perfect costumes, and production design for a complete cinematic experience.

A renowned surgeon loses his memory after an attempted robbery in a dark street. Lost and confused, he roams the country for decades not knowing who he is or whatever happened to the little daughter his estranged wife stole from him. His love in this dynamic period piece is both for his lost daughter and his lost occupation, which once made him the top brain surgeon in the country but now catapults him from the upper class to the lower.

Director Michal Gazda quietly shows in a series of remarkably affecting scenes how this lost man saves lives without knowing why and comes closer to finding his daughter than he could ever realize. While his amnesia is persistent, the film shows how something as deeply felt as a gifted skill and its passion manifest even without realizing it. Lesek Lichota gently plays the heroic Doctor Wilczur with such finesse and understatement that none can deny his greatness.

After a few improbable incidents, including Polish magical realism, the doctor emerges. Along the way, the film emphasizes the class divide through the secondary romance of the doctor's daughter, Maria (Maria Kowalska) with Count Czynski (Mikolaj Grabowski).

A society that can deny peasants' medical needs and thwart the integration of love between those boundaries reveals a cruelty that only heroes like the doctor and his daughter can overcome. The film consistently emphasizes the class divide and its attendant injustices.

While Forgotten Love at times evokes tears in the delicacy of love forsaken, the film grounds itself in the reality of lost love and class warfare to the dramatic extent that reconciliations might not happen, so determined fate seems to be to deny happiness and, most of all, love.

Forgotten Love is one of the best international films of the year that satisfies our need for romance in art that leaves us happy to be human.

I took a chance on this movie and decided to watch it without seeing a trailer first, and I'm so glad I did. I loved every minute of it! The plot and story line gave me all the feels. One moment I wanted to cry, other moments I wanted to throw my remote at the screen, and in a couple scenes I wanted to get up and dance! Some characters melted my heart while others infuriated me. It was so beautifully balanced and entertaining.

In some ways it reminded me of Les Miserables, but with a completely different storyline.

From start to finish, I loved it. I'll definitely be looking for more movies like this one.

What a nice surprise of a movie! Kind of liked everything about this movie. The actors are great and don't come across like spoiled Hollywood brags. The backdrops are calming without too much overwhelming design, just simplicity of rural living. The music seems appropriately selected and the cinematography is beautifully done. Yeah, the end is predictable, but at the same time something the viewer is expecting from it, so can't fail this either. Anyways, a well deserved 10/10, and believe me when I say that I don't often give movies this rating. It's a story that needed to be told, and I'm so glad it's not done by Hollywood. Thumbs up!

I watched part of it last night and could not wait until tonight to finish it. It was warm and wonderful and such a soothing movie. All of the actors were great and the musical score was fabulous. The relationship between the have, and the have not, was not realistic in real life terms. I especially liked the character of the Doctor's newly found girlfriend. She as a fav character and emoted so much emotion and feeling. I was happy to see him "kiss" her. He took his time. He did not understand code for "just wanted to see if you need anything before you go to bed." It was a darling movie and wish we had more offering in that genre.

International audiences should know where the negative opinions of some Polish film reviewers come from. Well, the book Znachor (The Quack), written in 1937 by Tadeusz Dolega-Mostowicz (initially as a screenplay), lived to see three screen adaptations. The first one, directed by Michal Waszynski, was also filmed in 1937, the second one, directed by Jerzy Hoffman, premiered in 1981, and this one, albeit a rather loose adaptation of the novel (especially when it comes to the character of Professor Dobraniecki, who is a disgusting character in the book) gained recognition from Polish audiences and acquired the status of an icon of Polish cinematography, and icons are not touched in Poland. At least that's what some people think, especially those who can't tear themselves away from what was, no matter what the quality of the new one is.

Meanwhile, the new adaptation (yes adaptation, not remake) of the novel "The Quack", which has the international title "Forgotten Love", is a brilliantly shot, charming film about love, goodness, loyalty to principles and a bit about Poland as it was between the World Wars. Wonderful cinematography, great music interwoven with folk songs, set and costume design, and excellent acting (there really is no weak role in this film) make you travel back in time to the first half of the 20th century for 2 hours and 20 minutes feeling as if you are almost there, in the beautiful Polish countryside. You will love the characters and identify with them, and when the film is over you will want to watch it again. In the previous version, Hoffman made the rascal Dobraniecki into a knight on a white horse who rescues Professor Wilczur from his oppression; in this version, this miserable careerist and scoundrel remains himself to the end, just as in the book. Fans of Hoffman's film will not find the iconic courtroom scene in Forgotten Love, but this could not have happened if the authors had decided to be consistent with Dobraniecki's character. Instead, there is a new version of it, in my opinion more logical, beautiful and truly moving. And the ending? Also different, also consistent with the adaptation adopted and really beautiful. So, don't look at the frustrators and retrogrades, just watch this film and I assure you that not only will you not regret it, but you will experience more than 2 hours of emotion, laughter, reflection and a bit of history, all in beautiful landscapes and scenery that will not return. Highly recommended.