Manhunt movie sets sights on Poland's WWII resistance

Marcin Dorocinski (L) and Maciej Stuhr (R): image - Kino Swiat

Manhunt (Oblawa), which scooped the Silver Lions Award at Poland's pre-eminent annual film event, the Gdynia Film Festival, marks the return of director Marcin Krzysztalowicz.

The film focuses on a corporal in Poland's clandestine Home Army (AK) whose task is to carry out death sentences handed down by underground courts.

The corporal, played by Marcin Dorocinski, is part of a division hiding out in woodland somewhere in Nazi-occupied Poland.

The director's late father was himself a soldier in Poland's underground army, and Krzysztalowicz, - who also wrote the script - has dedicated the film to him.

Nevertheless, the director insists that the film is not based on his father's wartime exploits.

Writing in the Gazeta Wyborcza daily, critic Pawel T. Felis noted that Manhunt shuns “black and white moralising,” choosing instead to emphasize the “absurdities of war.” (nh)