Eroica

^director Andrzej Munk
^screenplay (based on own stories, ‘Hungarians’ and ‘Escape’) Jerzy Stefan Stawiński
^{director of photography} Jerzy Wójcik
^music Jan Krenz
^with Edward Dziewoński, Barbara Połomska, Ignacy Machowski, Leon Niemczyk (Short Story I: ‘Scherzo alla Polacca’); Kazimierz Rudzki, Henryk Bąk, Mariusz Dmochowski, Roman Kłosowski, Bogumił Kobiela, Józef Kostecki, Tadeusz Łomnicki, Józef Nowak, Wojciech Siemion (Short Story II: ‘Ostinato – Lugubre’)
^awards
 awards for the best film, for the screenplay and FIPRESCI Prize at the International Film Festival in Mar Del Plata, 1959
 Warsaw Mermaid (Syrenka Warszawska) – Film Critics' Club SDP Award, 1959

ANDRZEJ MUNK, ON HIMSELF; INTERVIEW WITH STANISŁAW JANICKI [IN:] ANDRZEJ MUNK [ANDRZEJ MUNK, O SOBIE; WYWIAD UDZIELONY STANISŁAWOWI JANICKIEMU, [W:] ANDRZEJ MUNK], WARSZAWA 1964

Only a scoundrel could speak out against manifestations of heroism. I feel I am being wronged by those who accuse me of representing in my films some anti-heroic tendencies. We had never manifested a cynical attitude towards heroism, but we treated it as a real fact. In ‘Eroica’ nobody speaks ill of heroes, even if their deeds are irrational, they are always shown with sympathy, with fondness. All we indicated was the uselessness of those types of manifestations in concrete situations.

BRONISŁAWA STOLARSKA, HOSTAGES OF HOPE [ZAKŁADNICY NADZIEI], ‘KWARTALNIK FILMOWY’ 1997, NO. 17

The plot of both parts of ‘Eroica’ is connected with the Warsaw Uprising. The story of ‘Scherzo Alla Polacca’ is set during the rising, while that of ‘Ostinato Lugubre’ – immediately after the defeat of the rising, in a POW camp. By taking up this theme in 1957, Munk touched an unhealed wound and entered the taboo territory. (…) Presenting the ups and downs of the Warsaw-bred sly dog Dzidziuś Górkiewicz (…), he consciously plays with the ‘hero’s’ ambiguity and his entanglement in the sphere of perceiving and understanding of moral values. (…) It is only from the perspective of the holocaust of the city that one can perceive Dzidziuś as a Hermes, and the values he represents as a threat to the values of everyday life. (…) In ‘Ostinato Lugubre’ we again have estrangement and distance. (…) The viewer is proposed changing points of view. (…) This allows Munk to ask questions which in the history of Poles have been asked before: can one live in captivity?, how to cope with the resulting humiliation?, what is hope? (…). Munk, like Norwid before him, believes that one’s confidence in the consequences of truth is Hope.