The eighth day of the week
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The eighth day of the week |
| Original title | Ósmy dzień tygodnia |
| Country of production | Germany , Poland |
| original language | Polish |
| Publishing year | 1958 |
| length | 84 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Aleksander Ford |
| script | Aleksander Ford, Marek Hłasko |
| production |
Artur Brauner , Aleksander Ford |
| music | Kazimierz Serocki |
| camera | Jerzy Lipman |
| cut | Halina Prugar-Ketling |
| occupation | |
| |
The eighth day of the week is a Polish-German feature film from 1958 by director Aleksander Ford . The film was based on the story The eighth day of the week (original title: Ósmy dzień tygodnia ) by Marek Hłasko , who worked on the script together with Ford .
action
The film is set in Warsaw in the 1950s . The traces of the destruction of the city by World War II are still evident. Against this background, a love story develops between Agnes and Piotr. The biggest problem in their love life, however, is that they cannot find a quiet place for themselves. Piotr practically lives on the street and Agnes in a small, ugly apartment with her mother and father. Brother Gregor, who is a bad drinker, is also looking for his place to sleep here. In addition, the subtenant Zawadzki ensures additional confinement, but the family is dependent on his rent. Piotr tries everything to find an apartment for himself and Agnes. However, his search is unsuccessful and degrading. Finally a journalist comes to the rescue, but Agnes has to surrender to him in order to get to the desired apartment for herself and Piotr.
background
What is unusual about this film is that it is a co-production between capitalist West Germany and socialist Poland. However, this also meant that Aleksander Ford failed to screen the film in Poland during his lifetime. The German premiere took place with success on August 26, 1958. The German theatrical release was on November 18, 1958 in Cologne . The film was only shown in Poland in 1983. This is the longest time in Polish film history that a film has been banned in the so-called poison cabinet .
During the shooting, the March to July 1957 in Wroclaw , Warsaw and Lodz took place met Sonja Ziemann and Marek Hłasko know each other. Germany's popular film star and Poland's most important young writer married in 1961.
Trivia
In the literary model, Hłasko had chosen the streets and houses of Śródmieście (“inner city”) destroyed by the war. The plot of the film, on the other hand, takes place for the most part in Warsaw's newly rebuilt and therefore well-kept old town, which makes the action seem unrealistic. For example, the scene in which a little boy has to play on a leash in the half-destroyed stairwell is realistic in a bombed-out apartment building, but not in a rebuilt old town house.
The subtenant Zawadzki lives with the family by virtue of the official allocation of the living space as a typical "sublocator" of the Stalinist era. Private renting was next to impossible in the People's Republic of Poland.
Reviews
“The love story of a young couple in Poland in the 1950s who are looking for a place to be together undisturbed and who are confronted with the material and emotional wretchedness of their environment. A consciously pessimistic view of time; Staging and acting impressive. "
“The deliberately pessimistic story of a young couple (...) The oppressive desolation of this artistically very endeavored film from Poland would be more worth considering if it did not also insist on an unacceptably sensual conception of love. Visiting is not recommended. "
“'The eighth day of the week' was a lousy short story, but decent material for a good film. But: You have to be able to make films. (Aleksander) Ford, who only knows Warsaw from the window of his car, lets the protagonist wander through the candy-colored streets of the old town (...) The story (...) was about one thing: a girl in a repulsive, dirty world wants for herself only one thing for herself and for her boyfriend - the beautiful beginning of her love. Ford made the theme of the film that people have no place to bird, which is not true, because you can fuck anywhere. "
literature
- Marek Hłasko : The eighth day of the week. Stories (original title: Ósmy dzień tygodnia ). German by Vera Cerny and Hans Goerke . Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1990, 228 pp. ISBN 3-462-02053-6
Web links
- The eighth day of the week in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The eighth day of the week at filmportal.de (with photo gallery)
- Filmpolski.pl
Individual evidence
- ↑ The eighth day of the week. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ 6000 films. Critical notes from the cinema years 1945 to 1958 . Handbook V of the Catholic film criticism, 3rd edition, Verlag Haus Altenberg, Düsseldorf 1963, p. 13
- ↑ marekhlasko.republika.pl ( Memento of the original from September 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
