Antichrist (2009)

Recommended

Denmark/France/Sweden/Italy/Poland/Germany

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Lars von Trier

Cinematographer: Anthony Dod Mantle

Cast: Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg

Following the accidental death of their infant son, a grieving couple travel to an isolated cabin in the woods in an attempt to work through their grief, guilt, and fear, but their problems merely become exacerbated, in von Trier’s polarising psychological horror film; a harrowing, painful, and occasionally brilliant work, boasting two exceptional and exceptionally brave performances. Iain.Stott

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No End (1985)

Highly Recommended

Poland

Feature Film

Original Title: Bez konca

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski

Writers: Krzysztof Kieslowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz

Cinematographer: Jacek Petrycki

Composer: Zbigniew Preisner

Cast: Grazyna Szapolowska, Maria Pakulnis, Aleksander Bardini, Jerzy Radziwilowicz, Artur Barcis, Michal Bajor, Marek Kondrat, Tadeusz Bradecki, Danny Webb

When a ballsy young lawyer dies of a heart attack at a time of martial law, he leaves behind a wife, a son, and a potentially dangerous case defending a strike leader, which ends up in the hands of an older, more conservative barrister, in this beautifully acted, sensitively shot, and outstandingly scored film, which informs, moves, and provokes in equal measure. Iain.Stott

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Mother Joan of the Angels (1961)

Highly Recommended

Poland

Feature Film

Original Title: Matka Joanna od aniolów

Director: Jerzy Kawalerowicz

Writers: Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Tadeusz Konwicki, Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz

Cinematographer: Jerzy Wójcik

Composer: Adam Walacinski

Cast: Lucyna Winnicka, Mieczyslaw Voit, Anna Ciepielewska, Maria Chwalibóg, Kazimierz Fabisiak

Kawalerowicz’s sensually mounted, barely disguised polemic – in which pious members of the Catholic church (representing the idealistic communists) try to drive the devil (representing human nature) out of a convent full of possessed nuns – proves itself to be a beautifully photographed and excellently acted political allegory. Iain.Stott

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Interrogation (1982)

Recommended

Poland

Feature Film

Original Title: Przesluchanie

Director: Ryszard Bugajski

Writers: Ryszard Bugajski, Janusz Dymek

Cinematographer: Jacek Petrycki

Composer: Danuta Zankowska

Cast: Krystyna Janda, Adam Ferency, Janusz Gajos, Agnieszka Holland, Anna Romantowska

A female singer, following a drunken night out, is taken into police custody for no apparent reason and interrogated at length without charge, in television director Bugajski’s powerful film, which remained unseen (legally, at least) until the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc in 1989. Iain.Stott

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Workshop Exercises (1987)

Recommended

Poland

Short Documentary

Original Title: Cwiczenia warsztatowe

Director: Marcel Lozinski

Cinematographer: Jacek Petrycki

Members of the public, on the street, are asked for their opinions about Polish youth; these interviews are shown three times, with varying degrees of editing and dubbing, producing very different results, in Lozinski’s disconcerting short documentary about propaganda film-making. Iain.Stott

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