Title: Little Rose
Filmed: Poland, 2010
Screenplay: Maciej Karpinski, Jan Kidawa-Blonski
Director: Jan Kidawa-Blonski
English subtitles
Screened at the Berney Theatre, November 21, 2012, as part of the Tarbut Festival of Jewish Culture at the Rady Centre, Little Rose is set in 1967 Communist Poland. It is based upon a true story written about a famous writer and historian, whose wife, a communist. Agent, betrayed him. “Little Rose” is the code name assigned to Kamila (Magdalena Boczarska), a beautiful young woman. She is is induced by her boorish boyfriend, Roman Rozek (Robert Wieckiewicz), who is a member of the secret police, to befriend and, indeed, to seduce, well known professor, and intellectual, Adam Warczewski (Andrzej Seweryn), for the purpose of procuring information from him, spying upon his activities, and reporting upon what she learned. Adam is many years her senior, and is a widower.
Adam is suspected by the police of being a Zionist, and of being a trouble maker, and, perhaps, of being connected with the adverse broadcasts on Radio Free Europe about the Polish regime. The only activity in which the professor appears to be engaged, in fact, is advocacy against state censorship.
Kamila, though not enthusiastic about the assignment, wants to please her boyfriend, and undertakes to carry out the seduction and surveillance for him. She is prevailed upon to sign an oath of loyalty regarding her mission. At first she does deliver reports about the professor and his activities, but as she spends more time with him she is drawn to him, and falls in love with him. He too, is in love. She eventually leaves her boyfriend to move in with Adam, and she stops reporting his activities. The role for which Kamila was recruited, however, is revealed to Adam. The result of that revelation leads to unfortunate consequences.
Quite central to the film are erotic scenes, that depict, and seem to characterize the difference in Kamila’s relationships with the two men in her life..
The direction and acting are superb! The principals as well as the several supporting actors portray the roles of the characters they represent with credibility and sensitivity. Even Adam’s young daughter, Dorota (Julia Kornacka), plays her role with quiet aplomb, as a little nuisance, inserting her presence into the growing relationship between Kamila and Adam. Presumably she was protecting the place her mother had held in their family prior to her passing.
Email
Share
RSS
