Jackson Booth-Millard I found this Polish film in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, alongside its followup Man of Iron which came five years later, and which I almost watched first, this original definitely sounded interesting, from director Andrzej Wajda (Ashes and Diamonds). Basically young filmmaker Agnieszka (Krystyna Janda) is making her diploma film, she decides to focus it on the 1950s, the Stakhanovite movement, and the man who became a symbol of an over-achieving worker, in Nowa Huta, heroic Polish bricklayer Mateusz Birkut (Jerzy Radziwiłowicz). From stock footage, including outtakes and censored footage, in the archives, interviews with some people who knew the propagandist, including his ex-wife, his friends the filmmaker who helped him become a hero to the people, and the marble statue of the man found beneath ground, she chronicles Birkut's life. We see the life of Birkut in flashbacks, including his early beginnings, his fall from grace, and his rise to become a hero during the workers' revolution to the people with his multiple brick laying in building housing, but no-one knows what has happened to him. But Agnieszka's hard-driving style and content for her film are causing concern for the authorities and unnerving her supervisor, they think the student is digging in too deep to recent history, the supervisor kills the project, claiming it is over budget her footage and equipment are confiscated. Agnieszka's father suggests there is a single specific reason the authorities do not want the film to be completed and released, so following her seeing more footage found and the advice, she takes some equipment and goes to find Birkut for herself and ask him questions, even if she is not involved in the making of the film, in the end she does find Birkut's son Maciej Tomczyk (also Radziwilowicz) in the Gdańsk Shipyard, he tells her that his father died years ago. Also starring Tadeusz Lomnicki as Jerzy Burski, Jacek Lomnicki as Young Burski and Michal Tarkowski as Wincenty Witek. I am not sure I know fully why this film was withheld for four years, but it works as both a pseudo-documentary and a thriller of sorts, with a filmmaker going into places she shouldn't go, and seeing the origins of the man she is trying to find out about, I admit there were some slow spots, but all together it is an interesting drama. Very good!

bandw I came to this film after having watched Wajda's "Ashes and Diamonds," which I consider to be one of the finest films I have seen. However, "Man of Marble" was just too quirky for me, leaving me a bit perplexed. The story concerns a young film student, known here only as Agnieszka, who decides to produce a documentary on one Mateusz Birkut as her graduation project. Birkut was an idealistic bricklayer who rose to the status of post-WWII hero by way of displaying superior efficiency and strength. His innovation of how to use a small team to accomplish improved production came to be so well recognized that he would tour the country setting up such teams. The film time-slices from the 1970s, when Agnieszka is making her film, to previous times, all the way back to mock documentary footage of Birkut in the 1950s. The presentation is anything but flattering to the Communist Party and it is astounding the Wajda was able to get this made in a time when the Communists were still in power in Poland. The story must be autobiographical to some extent, since we see Agnieszka encountering political opposition to her digging too deeply into the past trying to reconstruct Birkut's life and figure out why he essentially dropped from the scene after having been so highly visible; there is also a famous film director in the movie whom we get to know well.There are many scenes that had the quality of a dream, but yet seemed like they were supposed to be taken for real. For example, one scene has Burkit's friend Witek going into a small office of a party boss and, when Burkit enters the office some time later there is no sign of Witek. If this were to be taken as some sort of Kafkaesque event, then Burkit would have made no remark on the mysterious disappearance, but he express the surprise that any normal person would have. I did not know what to make of such scenes. Agnieszka's facial expressions and body movements are often quite odd, bordering on the bizarre, and they accentuated the feeling of unreality I had that became increasingly more pronounced as the movie progressed.The collage of Agnieszka's interviews, mock documentary footage, scenes from Burkit's life, scenes from Agnieszka's own life, and an inappropriate musical score did not coalesce for me.

allenrogerj The usual comparison- and inspiration- is with Citizen Kane, but there are important differences. One is that the hero here really is a citizen- a comrade in his own eyes- and the other is the difference in the person trying to learn about him. The reporter in Citizen Kane is an experienced hack who is indifferent except to the front page; Agnieska is at the start of her possible career, making her graduation film, the one which will make her name and determine her future and looking for a story that matters in itself; indeed, Agnieska's story is as important to the film as Birkut's and in some ways her story reflects his. She works as determinedly as any Stakhanovite and the way she binds her helpers- the film crew, archivists, people who knew Birkut- to her in her task and to think it worth doing for themselves means that she creates a shock-force as real as and more effective than Birkut's display team of brickies. Again, the characters we meet who knew Birkut all have a relationship with Poland as well as Birkut and their own careers- building-worker to political prisoner to industrialist; chekist to strip-club manager; propaganda film-director to...film-director; gymnast to drunkard- reflect the changes as they- and communist Poland- age. There's hope- the old cameraman blasted into admiration and respect for Agnieska when she shows she'll do his job for him. Indeed, Agnieska is a wonderful character, her long limbs wrapped round her, carrying "everything I possess" round everywhere, smoking cigarettes avidly, demanding "wide screen, like an American movie"- you can see why the Party and her superiors want her to succeed and why they fear her. Not only that, but the film is fair to Communist Poland- we see Agnieska's home and realise that it is because of the opportunities given by communism that she can leave the boundaries imposed on her railway-worker father, just as Birkut only achieves fame as a worker in a supposedly workers' state. It is because both of them take rhetoric seriously that they are finally unsuccessful. After all, we never do know who sabotaged the bricks and burned Birkut's hands, and it doesn't really matter in a state where rhetoric is what counts.

joezabel I'm surprised that this great film hasn't gotten more comments. In any case, the previous reviews really nail the film pretty well. I only want to add that the filmmaker within the film, Agnieszka (played by Krystyna Janda), is such a fiercely dedicated artist that she really commands our attention in every scene she's in. Sneaky, smart, with a deep cunning and a sly sense of humor, she is the real hero of the film. I love the many scenes where she steals mischievous glances at her co-workers while collecting the provocative material for her film.Watch for the scene where she kicks her sound man in the shin. Also especially memorable is her encounter with a more successful film director, who she must persuade to be interviewed. She simply walks up to his car, bends down and looks in at him, with a blank expression on her face, and stares at him. It's as if she's persuading him by sheer force of will! Truly a great film, and a great performance.