PROVINCIAL ACTORS [1978]
year:
- 1978
release date:
- 10 VIII 1979
runtime:
- 104 min
directed by:
- Agnieszka Holland
written by:
- Agnieszka Holland, Witold Zatorski
director of photography:
- Jacek Petrycki
cast:
- Halina Łabonarska [Anka Malewska], Tadeusz Huk [Krzysztof Malewski], Iwona Biernacka [Rysia, an assistant], Ewa Dałkowska [Krystyna Gazda], Sława Kwaśniewska [Malina, a prompter], Kazimiera Nogajówna [Hanka, an actress], Janina Ordężanka [Andrzej’s mother], Krystyna Wachelko-Zaleska [Daniela, actress], Stefan Burczyk [Andrzej, actor], Andrzej Buszewicz [Zygmunt Bielski, actor], Jan Ciecierski [Tadeusz Burski], Jerzy Fedorowicz [Michał Sulkiewicz], Adam Ferency [Adaś], Bronisław Kassowski [old actor], Jerzy Kryszak [Cynik, actor]
edited by:
- Halina Nawrocka
music by:
- Andrzej Zarycki
production design:
- Bogdan Sölle
produced by:
- Zespół Filmowy „X”
executive producer:
- Michał Szczerbic
awards:
-
- Polish Feature Film Festival in Gdańsk 1979: award for the best female actor in a leading role for Halina Łabonarska
- The Koszalin Debut Film Festival “The Young and the Cinema” 1979: Grand Prix Wielki Jantar, award for best performance for Halina Łabonarska
- MFF Cannes (France) 1980: FIPRESCI award
About the film
Theatre inside theatre and theatre inside film – these two themes adopted by the director turn out to be surprisingly fresh and the text by Wyspiański is still relevant today.
A director from Warsaw arrives at a provincial theatre. He wants to stage Wyspiański’s drama, Liberation, and casts the 30-year-old Krzysztof, the most talented actor in the company, in the lead role. Krzysztof is enthusiastic and full of ideas, but the dismissive attitude of the careerist director is like a cold shower for him. He must, however, go on acting and he vents his frustration and tension at home. His wife, Anka, an actress in a puppet theatre, is also dissatisfied with her work.
After the premiere, despite the triumphant mood in the theatre, Krzysztof feels that once again he has failed to tell the audience something important, something personal. His hopes of receiving interesting new job offers are shattered. Misunderstandings between Krzysztof and Anka increase and she leaves him. After a failed suicide attempt, Krzysztof declares that he will not play the role of Konrad anymore and he begins to speak with lines taken from the drama. Devastated, he comes to see Anka in the puppet theatre. This leads to a sad reconciliation, but the spouses no longer believe that any change is possible in their lives.
Adam Wyżyński, Leksykon polskich filmów fabularnych, Warszawa 1996
Articles
-
Head of Medusa, or realism in films of the Cinema of Moral Anxiety
Marcin Maron
„Kwartalnik Filmowy” – Special Issue 2013: “Polish Film Scholars on Polish Cinema”
