Two Elderly Men are asked by the Prime Minister to take care of the city for one day. During this time, they have to deal with the heat, a diplomatic conflict, a love rivalry, and a lack of water. They do it in their style – they sing easily.
Poland
Poland
125th Review for The Collab Weekly Movie Watch
One day, two whimsical older men are tasked by the prime minister to run the city for one day. If this wasn’t random and difficult enough, the city is strike with a heat, diplomatic conflict, lack of water and so much more. Their key to not crack and have a nervous breakdown, well sing of course and like the wiseman Eric Idle once said: “Always Look On The Bright Side of Life”.
So I had no idea what to expect coming in, as this was one of those random films that the Collab group just found out God knows where. And I was pleasantly surprised by what I got. Some very absurd,…
Viewed with the COLLAB.
I think there is a bunch of historical material needed to see why a film like Upal was made. It's pretty esoteric stuff, disregarding all the universal jokes toward bureaucracy and the elite.
I like the way the prime minister character is filmed completely off-camera. We never see the face behind the gravelly-voice that demands a vacation. When he walks into the old men's suite, he stumbles over a tiger rug - which is symbolic of politic's carnivorous nature - and it's funny he's having a hard time walking over it in that sense and additionally funny as the act of tripping recalls slapstick.
The two elderly men who are asked to take over and are also…
A Polish absurdist comedy that was a little too over-the-top for my taste. There’s a bit of “Let’s throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” feel to it, but the main targets seem to be pompous and protocol-driven government officialdom and bureaucracy. Not well-versed in Polish politics of the period, I’m sure some of the gags escaped me. But it tries a little too hard to be zany and madcap which grew tiring after awhile.
It helps explain this to know that the two main characters had a well-honed cabaret act that was popular on Polish television at the time. So they just imported themselves into this story of two songwriters (Jeremi Pryzbora and Jerzy…
People might not believe it based on how I probably/definitely come across on here, but I do honestly realise the limits of my own understanding. For example, in my day job I'm always straight with my students when I don't know something: I won't ever try and fudge my way through a question to try and cover for some lacuna/chasm in my knowledge. There's a wonderful quote from the late great Christopher Hitchens that goes: "The measure of an education is that you acquire some idea of the extent of your ignorance". This is the opposite of the Dunning-Kruger effect we've all become so familiar with over the past few years. As someone who fancies himself educated, I fancy that…
A Benny Hill gag involving motorists getting distracted by a buxom babe leads into an SNL The Continental skit in which we're treated to a first-person perspective introduction to our lead characters. This is when a startling realization begins to set in: this seems to be a showcase for a popular comedic duo of the time who might be familiar with Polish audiences but nobody else, their very own Abbott & Costello. Intellectually, you can can logic how the bits are meant to be funny, but with such an Eastern European sensibility about it, Heat falls flat completely and utterly. Both men in our Odd Couple pairing are playing the straight man and as a result there is a lack of…
Holy shitballs, folks. This week's COLLAB Sunday movie is a painful one. I simply could not finish it. I will never finish it. That's not to throw shade on this week's theme - "Lesser-known movies with the titles of better-known movies" (at least in English.) That theme is fun as shit. But fuck this movie. Having sat through half of it, I am now in a very foul-mouthed mood.
I don't think I've ever watched a Polish comedy before. I'm sad this was my first, because violent restraint will now be necessary for me to ever watch another.
In the 50ish minutes that I watched, this film proved nothing more than low-key Vaudevellian / comedia del arte slapstick, women as…
Poland’s hardships did not end with the retreat of its German occupiers, as the Soviet bloc began to suffer under the newly formed communist governments. The continuing interference in agricultural and industrial affairs, and the inefficient collectivisation planning ushered in an era of political discontent. Amidst the dissatisfaction, two visible routes laid before the public; confrontation and evasion. This is where cabaret emerges in post-war Poland as a synthesis of the two. Creative resistance under the guise of song and comedy was able to alleviate the pressure of state propaganda through the imaginary ‘good old days’.
This is the stage onto which, composer Jerzy Wasowski, Mr A, and lyricist Jeremi Przybora Mr B came together to form Kabaret Starszych Panów…
- pani też się topi?
- tak
- dlaczego?
- dla kraju
- a ja… prywatnie
(relatable)
urodziłam się z ojca spawacza na gorąco i matki drobnej inteligentki. tatuś pijał i bijał mamusię, ale mamusia była tak drobna inteligentka, że tatuś nie trafiał
I need some polish insight on if this is funny or not because I didn’t laugh a singular time.
pani też się topi??
More than likely that I miss some essential knowledge of the political background for this film but it feels like a rather dry and somewhat racist comedy that pokes fun at the authorities and strange bureaucracy where responsibility is distributed lightly. It was previously declined by famed directors Tadeusz Chmielewski and Janusz Morgenstern which probably implies that something felt uncertain in the script. I didn't even know that there were such all-out comedies in Polish cinema as there were in Czechoslovakia or Hungary although Polish cinema is rarely dead-serious either. And it's indeed a Czech film that comes to mind from the rather chaotic yet restrained approach to the subject, a film that sometimes splashes over - not exactly surrealistic (overused and misunderstood term but not always out-of-place when depicting Polish films) but a kind of satirical screwball comedy that has a logic of its own.
