Review by mpadjasek

I saw "Dancing Hawk" in 1977 at the student film club and remember that it won the main prize at the Gdansk Film Festival and also won some additional prize in San Remo. So "Dancing Hawk" has its place in the history of Polish cinema. This is the story of the life of a peasant's son Michal Toporny (Franciszek Trzeciak) who, thanks to his persistence and incredible willpower, overcame class and generational barriers, paying for it with his own happiness and that of his loved ones. The film was based on the novel with the same title by the respected writer Julian Kawalec, who specialized in rural topics. I was born in the village myself, and many questions asked by this film related to direct experiences of my parents and, to some extent, mine. In my family, similar transitions from the countryside to the city were smoother, but I thought that the story of Michal Toporny was credible and more universal than just the urbanization of Poland, because going beyond our roots is never easy. So I watched "Dancing Hawk" with great interest and liked it. The first reason was that the realities of post-war Poland were well captured, the second was that the acting of Franciszek Trzeciak was great, and the third reason was that the film had its distinct and unique style, with very interesting camera work. If you add to it the participation of some popular actors of those days, like Beata Tyszkiewicz, Tadeusz Lomnicki and Edmund Fetting you get a film that is worth remembering today.