Am I Missing Something?

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This is very grim, we see lives of poverty and desperation and brutality.There acting is good, everyone delivers from Srodon as a likable coward to the bullying police officers.The pace is quite slow, there is a lot of build up since both plot threads are worked out in parallel and we have to wait until both are ready before the pace can increase, this made it hard to watch in the beginning but it's worth persisting.Both threads are dark and have a few twists.There is a bit of humour, some drunken humour in the past thread and some more gallows humour in the current time thread.The ending is very dark and surprising, and has a couple of extra twists.

Acting, directing, editing shine as a form of art in this beautiful movie. Actually the story is really simple. But, when telling of this story is combined with good acting and clever editing, brings a bright movie. Development of the plot is very clever, and teases your intelligence. It's dark and heavy, especially on the second half, makes it difficult to watch, but,the movie sticks you to your seat. Political issues are brightly inserted through the story. Which i like the most is the movie is not irritating you with the concern of political messages. They are just smoothly spread over the plot. And be prepared for a surprise ending. Just loved this movie!

This is an astounding film, bleak, grim, more than gritty and for those of us who were not brought up in an Eastern Bloc country a remarkable insight into the machinations of small town corruption Polish style.Films like this should be seen by a wider audience, it was a captivating experience to sit and view the inner workings of this elaborate (sometimes overly) story.There was just too much 'going on' in the story and some of it could have been left on the cutting room floor to give a tighter film, but that is a small critique of what is a disturbing look back at communism at 'street level'If you like your cinema real...don't miss the opportunity to see this slice of Polish communistic vodka sodden culture.

This movie is telling a story that could happen anywhere - if anywhere is Poland or any other communist country. The way how the things happen will remind you that the human kind has its dark side that comes out way too easily! From my point of view it is one of the most interesting new polish movies, the plot is not obvious - or at least how it goes is not, it has integrity and all the right elements any movie should have. My only complaint would be that there are to many side stories included to the main story. Not all are relevant, and some quite hard to digest and understand.If you like strong and heavy stuff - that makes you think about the condition of the human kind, you will find some in this movie.I can recommend this title if you would like to see (or just remind yourself) how the things were done in communist Poland.