Directed by Andrzej Munk • 1958 • Poland

One of only three feature films completed by Andrzej Munk before his tragic early death in a car accident, Eroica is a scathing assault on the false pieties of national pride and a key film in the history of the Polish School. The film is structured as two independent stories about Poland’s wartime history. In the first, attempts by the self-serving Dzidziuś (Edward Dziewoński) to escape the violence of the Warsaw Uprising against Nazi occupation (in which Munk himself fought) go comically awry, leading him to be hailed as a military hero. The second, meanwhile, depicts life for Polish officers in a German internment camp, where officious pretence still holds sway despite the desperate circumstances. Taken together, these two tall tales satirise the very notion of heroism, confirming Munk’s position as the anti-romantic posterboy of postwar Polish cinema.

EROICA
Directed by Andrzej Munk
Written by Jerzy Stefan Stawiński
Cinematography by Jerzy Wójcik
Music by Jan Krenz
Starring: Edward Dziewoński, Tadeusz Łomnicki, Barbara Połomska

In Polish with English subtitles