The Polish Film Festival series continues with the film, “The Promised Land,” at 4 p.m. Friday, May 9, at the Oak Park Arms, 408 S. Oak Park Ave. The film will be viewed and reviewed with radio announcer Dan Kane.
The 1975 drama was directed by Andrzej Wajda and based on a novel by Wladyslaw Reymont. It concerns three friends – Karol Borowieck (a Polish nobleman), Max Baum (German heir to a handloom factory) and Moritz Welt (a Jewish businessman).
At the turn of the century, Lodz, Poland, was a fast-paced manufacturing center for textiles, replete with cutthroat industrialists and unsafe working conditions. The three young friends pool their money together to build a factory. The movie follows their ruthless pursuit of fortune.
Borowieck is having an affair with a textile magnate’s wife. Shortly after the factory opens, the husband of Borowiecki’s lover learns of the affair. The husband takes revenge by burning down the new – uninsured – factory, causing the three partners to lose everything they had worked for.
A few years later Borowiecki marries a rich heiress, and in doing so, recovers financially and again owns his own factory. When the factory is threatened by a workers’ strike, he must decide whether or not to allow police to open fire on the mob. Borowiecki had never shown compassion toward subordinates, and despite pleas from an associate to change his ways, he authorized police to open fire after all.
The film won the Golden Prize at the 9th Moscow International Film Festival in 1975 and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Oak Park Arms Senior Living is a rental retirement community which provides senior housing in the form of independent living. Furnished apartments are also available for a short-term stay – a weekend, a week, a month or longer.
The event is free and open to the public. For more information call 708-386-4040.
