PRAWO I PIĘŚĆ

A Polish resistance fighter and Auschwitz prisoner "stranded" in 1945, shortly after the end of the Second World War, in the formerly German part of Lower Silesia. There he gets a job with a brigade tasked with putting a stop to the looting of the city, recently abandoned by the Germans. Soon however he comes to understand that his colleagues are themselves plunderers. On realising that he is unable to rely on outsiders for help, he decides to act. The former anti-fascist resistance fighter becomes a high-noon cowboy who uses his fists to enforce the law.

For many years after the end of the Second World War the expulsion of the German population and the resettlement of Poles from the Polish eastern territories annexed by the Soviet Union to the "recovered territories" remained a taboo subject in Poland. Though unimaginable today, back then Jerzy Hoffman's film was a courageous, highly politicised directing performance. Owing to the camera work, lighting design and the soundtrack, the latter composed by Krzysztof Komeda, the film proved an unforgettable cinematic event that took a chapter from history and made a historical "Western". KM