This film, which premiered at the 2013 Venice Biennale and opened in France the week before last (under the title L’Homme du peuple), was not one I was going to miss, in view of its subject matter and the director—Poland’s great Andrzej Wajda—even though it’s a biopic, which are normally merely good at best and rarely chefs-d’œuvre. But having seen it two evenings ago, I can report that it’s a solid, entertaining, well-done film on one of the most important revolutionary leaders of our times, Lech Wałęsa, and, more generally, on one of the most momentous revolutionary movements of the twentieth century, period: the working class uprising against the Communist dictatorship in Poland—a Soviet protectorate for 45 years following the end of WWII—and that set in motion the chain of events that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of Soviet rule in eastern Europe, and the end of the Cold War. As Variety’s fine critic Jay Weissberg puts it in the introduction of his thumbs up review
There’s something fitting about Andrzej Wajda bringing Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa to life, just as it’s proper that he subtitles the film “Man of Hope.” For “Walesa. Man of Hope” is a natural companion piece to the great director’s landmark “Man of Marble” and “Man of Iron,” his influential duo on resistance to communist oppression. With a bit of understandable triumphalism devoid of hagiography, Wajda tracks Walesa’s career from shipyard worker to Nobel Prize winner, crafting an old-fashioned (in the best sense), at times stirring biopic that masterfully integrates an exceptional range of contempo footage…
To continue reading Weissberg’s review, go here. As for ‘Man of Marble’ and ‘Man of Iron’, which I saw in 1978 and 1981 respectively, these were remarkable films for their time but, technically and otherwise, ‘Man of Hope’ is superior (at least insofar as I remember the two early films, as I only saw them once). Wajda does a good job in depicting the wretchedness of Communist rule—particularly in the early scenes of the 1970 protests in Gdansk and Gdynia—and the economic clochardisation it brought about, but also the doubts that apparatchiks of the system had by the 1980s of their own legitimacy. And while Wałęsa is portrayed as a charismatic leader and a hero—which he was—Wajda does not, as Weissberg accurately asserts, portray him as a saint. He is a leader with undeniable qualities but is also cocky and full of himself—are there any charismatic leaders who are not?—and who could have descended into megalomania were it not for the stabilizing presence of his loving but strong-willed wife, Danuta (that’s how Wajda depicts it at least).
À propos, I was discussing the film earlier today with a colleague, who said that he was hesitant to see it after having read a mixed review in Libération, whose critic, according to my colleague, criticized the film for being a hagiography (I have not yet bothered to look for Libé’s review). My response to this was that many on the Western European and North American left—including those who were not at all “Stalinists” or enamored of the Soviet model—were—and remain—uncomfortable with Wałęsa (and even with Solidarność itself). They intellectually understood the situation and sympathized with the workers in Gdansk but had a hard time wrapping their heads around the spectacle of a genuinely working class movement and independent trade union contesting a self-proclaimed socialist order, and with the movement’s leaders and members being, to a man and woman, devout Catholics and who worshiped the Pope (the adulation of Wałęsa and all those around him—and including lower-level regime agents themselves—for Jean Paul II is well depicted in the film). This was tough for many Western gauchistes to swallow—as was Wałęsa et al’s embrace of American support (e.g. one sees at the end of the film the hero’s welcome Wałęsa received in the US Congress in 1989, and with Dan Quayle seated in back of him while he gave his speech). Having frequented a gauchiste milieu in those years and knowing its discourse and world-view comme ma poche, I know of what I speak.
So if one has the chance to see the pic (which has yet to open in the US), do so, as I give it the green light. The review in The Guardian is here and article in the NYT is here (the film was a big hit in Poland). My anecdote of shaking hands with Wałęsa and hearing him speak is here. Trailer is here.