 |
Kamila (Magdalena Boczarska) and Roman (Robert Wieckiewicz) in Little Rose. |
By John Esther
Summer 1967, as fear of the Occident brews up the so-called Summer of Love, Eastern Europe experienced a rise of new leftists fighting against the pseudo socialists who had crawled to power though corruption, lies and acquiescence. Feeling pressure from the Kremlin on down and in across the border, the Polish Security Force needed some good old patriotic scapegoats to reign in the dopey masses and so they pulled that old die-in-the-woe foe: the intellectual Jew. Thanks to to the aggression of Israel, a U.S. ally, against Egypt and Syria, both Soviet allies, anti-Semitic propaganda had not been this easy or essential to sell since WWI -- only the totalitarians have a new name.
Co-written and directed by Jan Kidawa-Blonski, Little Rose reflects on this tumultuous time. Roman Rezek (Robert Wieckiewicz) is in the Polish Security Force. He has been assigned to dig up dirt on Adam Warczewski (Andrzej Sweryn), a well known writer and university professor suspected of clandestine contacts with freedom-fighting Western groups, so he can then bury him. Unable to pry the professor himself (he does not really bother trying), Roman enlists his lover, Kamila Sakowicz (Magdalena Boczarska), to aid him, even if this means she has to find Adam's secrets through a little pillow talk.
Yet things do not go as planned. Love and lust have a way of undermining bad governments.
Loosely inspired by the true story of famous Polish writer and historian, Pawel Jasienica, whose wife betrayed him, Little Rose offers an intriguing look into the play of power in politics and in the bedroom. Kamila becomes entangled between two allegiances, eventually forced into using her own power of seduction in order to survive.
Kamila's notable beauty is used for masculine gain. That is nothing new, except the filmmakers see little in the contradiction between addressing Kamila's exploitation as woman and worker (she is a secretary) and repeatedly using nude images of Boczarska without offering male exposure at anything remotely the same level.
(Watch out for the raincoat crowd.)
Recommended.
(Little Rose screens Jan. 7, 3 p.m., Palm Springs Regal 9; Jan. 10, 9:30 a.m., Palm Springs Regal 9. For more information: http://www.psfilmfest.org)
