Film Forum

Brzezina
Poland, 1970
Directed by Andrzej Wajda
Starring Olgierd Łukaszewicz, Daniel Olbrychski, Emilia Krakowska
Approx. 99 mins.

Made on commission for Polish television, this rarely screened film is a heartfelt gem in Wajda’s filmography. A rural tale of love and death, set deep in the forest and sensually photographed, it follows two brothers; a gloomy widow mourning for his wife while he raises his daughter, and an artist bursting with life-affirming energy and sexual passion despite suffering from tuberculosis. Love and death intertwine as, in a lodge deep in the forest, a dying consumptive pursues a village girl, while his vigorously healthy brother broods over his late wife.

Presented with support from The Ashes and Diamonds Fund for Eastern European Film and The Ada Katz Fund for Literature in Film

Reviews

“A gorgeously morbid tale, derived from a famous Polish novel but redolent of Turgenev and de Maupassant.”
– Carlos Clarens, The Soho Weekly News

“It is the most intense character drama he has made so far... The lyricism and beauty of the images constantly brighten the darkened souls of these individuals, and one responds with sympathy to their inept control of fleeting joy.”
– San Francisco International Film Festival

“Here, for the first time, he made a success of a theme both universal and timeless, wrestling with the most deep-seated anxieties of human existence.”
– Michałek Bolesław, The Cinema of Andrzej Wajda