director Grzegorz Królikiewicz
screenplay Grzegorz Królikiewicz
director of photography Bogdan Dziworski
music Henryk Kuźniak, Janusz Hajdun
with Franciszek Trzeciak, Anna Nieborowska, Irena Ładosiówna, Lucyna Winnicka, Jerzy Stuhr
awards
the FIPRESCI Prize and the Ecumenical Film Prize at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Week, 1973
the Josef von Sternberg Prize awarded to Grzegorz Królikiewicz, 1973
Grand Prix, Golden Grape at the Lubuskie Film Summer in Łagów, 1978
Best Leading Role Award, Best Music Award and prize awarded by the Polish Association of Film Critics, the Don Quixote, at the Lubuskie Film Summer in Łagów, 1973
Golden Camera – ‘Film’ magazine award for Best Direction Debut, 1973
the Zbyszek Cybulski prize awarded to Franciszek Trzeciak, 1974
[MONOLOGUE FROM THE FILM]
Malisz (in court): After about two months they discharged me from the hospital. I met my wife. She told me things about herself that no woman would ever tell a man. It was then that she felt I loved her, it’s such a distinct feeling. From then on we used to go out together. To get a job you need a recommendation, but who from? I see my wife is just a bundle of nerves and I’m walking around like mad. I was so hungry that I pawned my revolver for 95 zlotys. The money went to everyday living expenses. And I kept thinking of how to redeem the gun, because when I have a gun on me I’m a different man. And without it – although I knew nobody would attack me – I always walked at the edge of the pavement.
ANDRZEJ WERNER, ALL OR NOTHING, OR NOT ONLY THE MALISZ CASE [WSZYSTKO ALBO NIC, CZYLI SPRAWA NIE TYLKO MALISZÓW], ‘KINO’, 1973, NO. 4
The Malisz family live in squalid conditions, without a place of their own and without a job. But where is the cause and where is the effect? (…) Theirs is not a closed case. (…) Their pathology is that of ‘metaphysical disease’ or ‘metaphysical hunger’ (…) All or nothing – the murder meant the choice of the latter. With a choice like that the main characters lost their’s and other’s values. (…) The artistic patron of this film is Dostoyevsky. (…) It is a film born of tradition, one that visibly bears the burden of the past – recorded not on celluloid but in people’s glances and gestures, in dirty streets and backyards. Królikiewicz has made a very personal, peculiar and passionate film (…) He did mean something here!
history periods
