Tatarak

2009 [POLISH]

Action / Drama

9
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 63% · 1 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 63% · 250 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.3/10 10 1563 1.6K

Plot summary

As an aging woman married to a workaholic doctor by chance meets a young man who makes her feel young again. All of this is films by a director making a film about her which cuts in and out of the on camera and off camera drama.

Director

Andrzej Wajda Photo
Andrzej Wajda

Top cast

Roma Gasiorowska Photo
Roma Gasiorowska as Janitor
Pawel Szajda Photo
Pawel Szajda as Bogus / Marta's lover
Andrzej Wajda Photo
Andrzej Wajda as Self
Mateusz Kosciukiewicz Photo
Mateusz Kosciukiewicz as Bridge Player #2
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
760.6 MB
1280*544
Polish 2.0
NR
Subtitles us   pl  
25 fps
1 hr 22 min
Seeds ...
1.53 GB
1920*816
Polish 5.1
NR
Subtitles us   pl  
25 fps
1 hr 22 min
Seeds 1

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by chemingineer 5 / 10

A Disappointing Tale of Death

Marta is the middle aged wife of a doctor in a small town. She has lost both her sons in the war and leads a monotonous life. Unknown to her she is also dying of lung cancer. One day she meets a lad who could be her son's age and feels physically attracted to him. But their riverside rendezvous ends in terrible tragedy. Now the director Andrzej Wajda complicates this simple story by weaving in another dimension. The actress playing Marta was reluctant to work in the film because of her husband's chemotherapy. While the film's tragic sequence is being shot underwater, she receives the death of her husband. It is an interesting idea but fails to deliver the dramatic impact since most of the second story is related in a long monologue by the actress. Wajda actually ends up ruining the first story too by one disastrous act of cutting between film and reality. A huge disappointment from the Polish master.
Reviewed by srd-30659 7 / 10

A sweet but semi-rush

I am a great fan of Andrzej Wajda ever since I screened Knife in the Water for my film society members and have repeatedly viewed it. He is master in opening up his film in a slow pensive way so that when it ends, it hits you hard. Sweet Rush of course starts in room in solitude lighted by a window in a Edward Hopper fashion. The scenes swing between under lighted home and clinic of the doctor husband to the brightly, quietly, peacefully pastoral countryside where the tragedy ends the serenity of Riverside. Story swings from Death to Life and back again. Suddenly at the river, you see the sequence which once looked to be part of the story being filmed. I am not sure about the concept of film within film tried here. In real life Wajda's cinematographer Edward Klosinski was Krystyna's real husband as in the film. Krystyna Janda as Marta is superb.
Reviewed by picaresk 7 / 10

An ode to the fragile beauty of youth

The bleak dark room where Krystyna Janda recalls the illness and death of her husband is the root of the sweet rush lurking in the dark, muddy bed of the river - the reality. The contrasting nectar of life given so well and poignantly through the beautiful imagery, the light, the lush nature, the music, and the wonderfully naive scenes of Bogus and Maria, you can't help loving this film above its flaws. It feels like the Krystyna Janda real life scenes were made for the actress rather than for the audience. And though heart breaking it is, these monologues are a bit too long and too raw and end up like a dull paraphrasing of a poem. Probably this is intended, but still, I would rather see that time used for more on the characters, on the story and its questions.
Read more IMDb reviews

2 Comments

Be the first to leave a comment