THE WEDDING (WESELE) Tribute to Andrzej Wajda: 40 Years of Filmmaking

The most interesting and typically Polish film of the year, and perhaps Wajda’s best. Rleality combines with dreams, nightmares, unrealized ambitions. The Wedding’s time frame is the beginning of this century, the period of the so-called Young Poland. Vibrant with new literary and artistic trends, it was a time of exuberant symbolism, of ideas of enmity between intellectuals and peasantry. Wyspianski’s drama was based on the actual wedding of the famous poet Lucjan Rydel of Krakow, who married a country girl from the surrounding region The Wedding is a grand film on Poland and the Poles, their history and social classes. Wajda, in this beautifully-made film, has managed to convince the viewer that the play was written not for the theater at all but specifically for the cinema.-Ryszard Konicek