Le cinéma polonais, de l'après-guerre à Solidarnosc Retrospectives 2003

The Dance

Salto

Tadeusz Konwicki

Poland

1965 Fiction 1h42

A mysterious person appears in a village. He claims he is a hunted partisan facing the death penalty. For many of the inhabitants, the war is still very much alive. They see this stranger as a prophet or a saviour...

With : Zbigniew Cybulski, Gustaw Holoubek, Marta Lipinska
Screenplay : Tadeusz Konwicki
Image : Kurt Weber
Music : Wojciech Kilar

Production : ZRF Kadr-WFF Wroclaw, WFF Lodz
Distribution: Film Polski

After studying Polish literature at Warsaw University, Tadeusz Konwicki (1926) began working for Nowa Kultura, where he published pieces of his first literary works. A major contemporary Polish writer, he has also devoted himself to cinema since 1950, when he began working as a critic, then scriptwriter (Mother Joan of the Angels and Pharaoh), and finally director. "Pursuing a solitary approach, Konwicki refused to make blockbuster films. With The Dance, he made a tragicomical tale where irony becomes lyrical and the humble becomes noble. A mix of myths, motifs and themes from Polish literature, Konwicki uses these elements at the same time as he ridicules them. He creates the wonderfully ambiguous Kowalski, a perfect example of the Polish psyche" (B. Michalek).