THE PROMISED LAND

THE PROMISED LAND was recently named the best Polish film of all time. Wajda earned an Oscar nomination in 1976 for this opulent panorama view of society. In feverish, at times grotesque, at times painterly images, he tells the story of three friends in the textile manufacturing hub of Łódź. In the early-stage capitalism before the turn of the 20th century, the three buddies are looking to strike it rich in Poland’s Wild West. Wajda for his part, whose stylistic choices recall Fellini more than a little here, also has social conflicts and brutal class differences firmly in his focus here. At the centre of the film is the aristocratic young entrepreneur Karol Borowiecki, portrayed brilliantly by Daniel Olbrychski: a Warsaw critic once referred to the character as “Polish cinema’s first industrial gangster”.