Expiação

This movie is highly underrated and should have a higher score than it currently has. The acting is superb and the set perfectly resembled Poland of the 80s. This film deserves more praise. The problem is that the subject matter it is very complex politically and will only be understood by those who have a solid background of polish history during the cold war period.

In 1984 a polish priest named Jerzy Popieluszko, who was prominently associated with the Solidarity movement was murdered by the Ministry of public Security, who is the equivalent of Russian KGB but the polish version. The autopsy showed that the priest was tortured and beaten prior to having his body dumped. This outraged the entire polish nation, which was 99% Catholic, and the Communist government in power had a public relations catastrophe on their hands. The Ministry of Security was obviously the most hated, and reviled by most poles as no one expected them to cross the line and actually do harm to one of the clergy.

This is why this movie is so intriguing, unfortunately this is never explicitly mentioned in the movie, just hinted at by dropping the name and the police joking in one scene that they or their department had nothing to do with the incident. Those who are not aware of the incident would miss a very critical motivating factor of why things occur as they do in the movie.

The acting in the film is exceptional and the investigation and handling by the local police is right on point with how Poland functioned in the early 80's. This movie is almost like taking a time machine back to the period and relive the experience, I give it very high marks in this regard.

Once you understand the politics and the delicateness of the matter everything starts falling into place and the movie starts to make a lot more sense. Those who are not aware of the politics will have a very difficult time understanding what is happening and the action on the screen will seem surreal and hard to follow.

This film should be rated at a 7.5 out of 10, I will score it as an 8.