Pills for Aurelia
A story about the Home Army insurgents smuggling the arms they need to liberate their friend from the Gestapo was changed by Stanisław Lenartowicz into a tense and lively thriller. A group of volunteers travel from Kraków to Kielce to collect weapons hidden in a toy factory. It turns out that the factory has been seized by the German Army, but the insurgents decide to take the rifles anyway. At first it seems that they are successful, but then the frightened driver cannot bear the tension and he does not stop at a routine checkpoint, resulting in the truck with the arms being chased. Urban Żagiełko, Agat and Guś are killed, but the pills finally reach their destination.
There is some humour in this film, which makes it lighter. It is funny when a soldier is so busy playing that he does not even notice that the strangers from Kraków are removing weapons hidden under the floor. There is also the grotesquely amusing Jarema, tenderly recalling the glory of the Polish winged cavalry and his father, a queer old man who fought in the January Uprising. They are both an important part of the surreal sequence set in a castle where the fugitives seek help.
Beata Cyganek
Stanisław Lenartowicz was born in 1921. He graduated from the Faculty of Philology at the University of Wrocław and from the National Film School in Łódź. His best-known work is a comedy entitled Giuseppe in Warsaw, but he also made psychological films. His debut, Winter Twilight was one of the first poetic films with style experiments. Lenartowicz came before the Polish School and at the same time he initiated it, proposing features characteristic of its style: decomposed narration, open composition and metaphorical, meaningful language of frames, referring to surrealism and expressionism. Films by Lenartowicz are visually astounding and at the same time forceful and poignant.
Filmography:
1956 Zimowy zmierzch/ Winter Twilight
1957 Spotkania/ Encounters
1958 Pigułki dla Aurelii/ Pills for Aurelia
1961 Nafta/ The Oil
1963 Pamiętnik pani Hanki/ The Last Days of Peace
1964 Giuseppe w Warszawie/ Giuseppe in Warsaw
1966 Cała naprzód/ Full Ahead
1969 Czerwone i złote/ The Red and the Gold
1970 Martwa fala/ Calm Flat
1972 Opętanie/ Obsession
1974 To ja zabiłem/ I Killed
1976 Za rok, za dzień, za chwilę…/ In a Year, in a Day, in a Moment..
1983 Szkoda twoich łez/ Tears Won't Help