Tonight at CSUN we saw "Man Of Iron" (1981) by Andrzej Wajda, the story of the struggle for Solidarnosc (The Solidarity Movement) in 1980 in Poland, as led by the workers at the Gdansk Shipyard. I think I have mentioned this before, probably in my review of "Man Of Marble", but I remember when Solidarnosc was in the news every day, and Lech Walesa was a household name. He was an electrician at the shipyard who led the worker's strike against the communist government, and he became a national hero who was ultimately elected President of Poland in the 1990s.
The movie was not about Walesa, per se, though he is seen in sections of the film, from stock news footage and also because director Wajda shot some of the movie at the shipyard, while the strike was happening. The story, however, is a continuation of Wajda's earlier "union" film, "Man Of Marble". "Man Of Iron" picks up where "Marble" left off, as the son of the fictional Worker Hero from "Marble" takes a job at the shipyard and becomes involved in the leadership of the strike.
In the main plot, a television producer is co-opted by local government bigwigs to infiltrate the strike, interview the "Man Of Iron" and make him look bad on TV. Thus the strike will be discredited. But the strikers have locked down the shipyard and won't let the producer in, nor any Polish media because they don't trust their own reporters, who they feel are all government shills.
The TV producer is in a bind, because if he doesn't come up with a derogatory portrayal of the union workers and their leader, he will be in deep trouble with the local party bosses, who are nothing more than gangsters.
That is all the plot I will give you. "Man Of Iron" is another Wajda Political Epic that, in this case, won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. That's like winning the Oscar for Best Picture.
For myself, while I give it Two Thumbs Up with no reservations, I will rank it behind it's predecessor "Man Of Marble", simply because that film truly had an epic scope, and while "Iron" aspires to a similar sweeping scale, I feel that it fell just a tad short, simply because so much of the story was just told in dialogue between two characters at a time. It felt like exposition in many scenes; i.e. the characters are "explaining" the story to you through their conversation. "Man Of Iron" was very good, but did not have the location shooting or action that made "Marble" so grand.
Overall, I highly recommend the films of Andrzej Wajda, and I am thinking that this retrospective has been one of my very favorites of the 18 (!) we have seen over the past nine years. I have loved them all, but other favorites have been Yasujiro Ozu, and of course Robert Bresson (my favorite director), and Satyajit Ray. Buster Keaton and Orson Welles, too. And Powell & Pressburger. You should seek out films by these directors, and others, if you want to get a view into the greatness of cinema. I could go on and on, as you know......
I really love movies. ///
I got my hair cut this morn, which always feels good and looks good too. These days I will let it grow for 8 to 10 weeks, but then I've gotta get it cut, just because my hair grows too crazy these days, curlier on one side than the other, and it doesn't have the quality to grow it too long. Plus, I don't wanna do that anyway. I looked pretty good with long hair through my 30s, but now I look best with "longish" hair or shorter. Not a regular haircut, though. Just a little bit more than that.
Well, the heck with it. Enough about me.
Maybe I will give you One Film Recommendation Per Night, from each director we have seen since the beginning of the Cinematheque. I will start with Jean-Luc Godard, who was the subject of our very first retrospective, back in September 2009. Watch "Band Of Outsiders" (1964) by him, for an introduction into Outre Cinema, in which a movie does not have to make sense to make sense.
Give it a shot, if you dare.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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