Stara basn. Kiedy slonce bylo bogiem

In my language this movie is called "The old tales of Vikings". For a fan of movies featuring Vikings one must say, that there aren't that many movies to watch. You keep returning to the same 3-4 good ones and if you crave something different, you start to scrape the bottom of the barrel pretty fast.

This movie appeared in the offering of my VOD. Given that it was apparently about Vikings and featured Zebrowski, whom I liked in the Witcher Series I gave it a go.

The movie has things I liked very much and things I didn't. Lets start with the bad.

The Acting is somewhat wooden, so is the direction and camerawork. The movie isn't very good to look at, with often bland colours, excessive exposition, lack of contrast and general shakiness. The opening shot of a wooden statue was already overly shaky, so the rest of the movie wasn't much of a surprise. The camerawork is basic and amateurish, reminiscent of television rather than a film. Imagine a worse Xena warrior princess style thing and you'd get the idea. What was making the experience worse in my case was the bad quallity of the dubbing, which had a reverb as if recorded in a bathroom. That's a problem though only if you watch the movie in Czech. I'd probably still choose the bathroom dubbing over trying to acquire the original with subtitles.

At times the direction is unintentionally funny. Usually death scenes feel more entertaining than dramatic.

The good things about the movie (other than the unintentional comedy) are the costumes, locations, fightscenes. The depicted Vikings are among the best and most accurate ones I have seen in a movie. Propper helmets and birnies are worn along with shields and 9th century swords. The fight scene against a band of Vikings is especially nicely done with practical effects and stunts. They must have been especially proud of the functional portcullis, because there are at leas 5 shots of it closing throughout the movie.

Overall, you can see that a lot of effort and passion went into making this movie. I feel like, they did the best they could with what was available and thus I can't be too critical about the shortcomings.

It will always puzzle me how can you make such a bad movie when you employ such great number of top Polish actors. I don't really know where to start...Actors (especially females) were bad and stiff. Women wore full make up and some of the Popiel's men seemed to have something that looked like a sabre to me, as a weapon. Shame. there was a great potential there. and with movies and TV series placed in medieval world today this could be another interesting addition to the genre. for Zebrowski this is another poor attempt at warrior based story. but as with The Witcher, this attempt is just abysmal. The same goes for Olbrychski. However, he doesn't really have to impress anyone at this stage of his career.

This is a Polish film which is all about a ruthless despot's attempts to crush a rebel army by enlisting the help of the Vikings. I'm not quite sure how historically accurate this is, but frankly who cares? It may not be a Hollywood spectacular but the hacking and slashing were enough to divert my attention and the complex plot is not unlike that great TV show, Game Of Thrones. It does come with subtitles intact though, so those dimwits who can't read and watch simultaneously can look elsewhere. Everyone else will probably enjoy a decent throwback to when our leaders were corrupt, life was cheap and barbarism ruled the day. Hmm... Maybe not that much of a throwback after all... 6/10

Stara Basn means "The Old Tale" in Polish. Indeed this is a mixture of Polish folklore and history brought to the big screen!

Set in the 9th Century...the movie depicts an exciting tale of love, betrayal, death...and action...plenty of it!

At 1 hr 45 mins long the pace is just right and never tires. The story itself is relatively easy to understand...even for a non Polish speaker like myself! This is mainly thanks to the gorgeous visuals...which really speak for themselves.

This movie has anything and is definetly highly recommended. Its the most polished, well crafted and enjoyable Polish film that I have seen in a long time!

One note of caution though: this film is highly graphic! You don't get the Hollywood clean cut treatment. So when heads roll, swords thrust into flesh and druids enact an orgy...you see EVERYTHING!!!

Still that's what it was like back then!!!

Mr. Jerzy Hoffman proved with this film that he has been and still remains to be one of the three greatest Polish film directors, along with Andrzej Wajda and Krzysztof Kislowski. This film was made with the obvious attempt to repeat the winning formula of Hoffman's super hit Ogniem I Miezcem (1999)- the theme is again about Poland's heroic past, the actors are more or less the same - Polish mega stars Zebrowski, Olbrychski, Zborowski, as well as Ukrainian star Bohdan Stupka and the Russian rising female star Maria Aleksandrova (she is somehow connected with Aleksander Domogarow who played one of the main roles in Ogniem I Mieczem - so, the principle of inviting as many OiM stars as possible worked out). And it worked. The film tells about the pre-Christian history of Poland, where there were many disparate tribes, and one of those was ruled by a bloody and ferocious chief Popel. He didn't hesitate to murderer all his relatives and his nephew only to stay a chief as long as possible. He is the merciless ruler, but there are people who challenge him. Among them is the brave archer Ziemowit, and he is the one who openly fights against Popel. It is not necessary to retell the whole story here, only keep in mind that this is a breathtaking film, with bloody battles, viking raids, pagan rituals, some sweet love story, beautiful nature and excellent sense of humor. Do watch it.