The relationship between Poland and its neighbors, namely Germany to the West and Russia to the East was always a very complicated and troublesome one during many centuries, reaching a peak when Poland disappeared entirely after the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia portioned their lands between them until Poland surfaced again in the year of 1918.
The film "Dla Ciebie, Polsko" ( For You, Poland ) deals in some way with such historical events, specifically in the Polish-Soviet war and particularly on April, 1919 when Poland captured Vilnius, capital city of Lithuania. The film immersed this newly Polish state with a love story of young couple, Frau Hanka and Herr Franek into its story of war where the communists overran the city and the Polish Army clashed with the Bolsheviks.
The film ( from the silent year of 1920 ), was directed by Herr Antoni Bednarczyk who had a short film career as director but a long one as actor and theatrical producer.
"Dla Ciebie, Polsko" is basically a patriotic film; having in mind the historical events that reflects the picture and its recent context. The film has a shamelessly Manichean view, depicting Bolsheviks in an excessively caricatured way ( the enemy as a heartless beast ) taking advantage of this aspect in order to transmit to the audience a nationalist message that certainly was its primal purpose. Due to this, Herr Bednarczyk direction many times seems amateurish, specifically his direction of actors was excessively naïf and clumsy.
But fortunately, the action scenes are remarkable in that many extras were involved in order to depict in great detail the armed conflict between Polish and Bolsheviks. The recovery of the city of Vilnius by the Polish troops, superb night scenes in where tanks and a huge army do their best, fighting bravely in the battlefield, including skillfully made shots from different angles illustrate how remarkable this was for such an early film production.
At the end of the picture is included a newsreel of the return of the Supreme Commander to Warsaw in where Commandant Herr Jozef Pilsudski, a very important Polish statesman of that time, walks in front of the troops, certifying in this way the annexation of the city of Vilnius to the second Polish republic. By affording such historical images consistently to the film, the fictional story; namely Frau Hanka und Herr Franek's adventures are overshadowed by the considerable importance of the film as a historical document.
And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must claim an antique aristocratic farmland to Herr Pilsudski.
Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/
