Amsterdam Polish Film Festival: A Lonely Woman and Fever

A Lonely Woman portrays Irena, a middle-aged single mother in 1980s Poland. Irena is living in squalid conditions, alone with her 8-year old son. She finds herself completely on her own, as she is neither a member of the Communist Party, nor of the recently formed Solidarity movement which is fighting for liberalization of Poland. Irena endures the lack of running water, heat, and electricity cuts, alongside her colleagues’ disentment for not choosing sides. After she starts a relationship with a disabled coalmine worker, a glimpse of hope appears as they start planning their plot to flee to the West.

Agnieszka Holland’s distinctive blend of dark humor and acute psychological observation delivers a vivid portrayal of Poland in the 1980s, emphasizing the bleakness and the brutal, almost poetically cruel absurdity of life under communism. Irena’s daily life offered a window into the realities hidden behind the Iron Curtain, but the Communist Party didn’t appreciate this insight and banned the film in Poland for six years.

Fever portrays a group of Polish anarchists who are plotting to assassinate a high-ranking Russian official. Set during the 1905 Russian Revolution, when Warsaw was still part of the Russian Empire, the film centers on their preparations and growing inner conflicts as they grapple with the moral implications of their violent mission. At the heart of the narrative is the relationship between the personal experiences of the revolutionaries and the larger historical events that shape their lives.