In nineteenth-century Łódź, Poland, three friends want to make a lot of money by building and investing in a textile factory. An exceptional portrait of rapid industrial expansion is shown through the eyes of one Polish town.
Direction
Wajda turns factory machinery into genuine nightmare fuel.
Cinematography
Soot-black frames that make you taste 19th-century smog.
Acting
Olbrychski's descent from idealist to monster is *chef's kiss*.
Director
Andrzej Wajda
Daniel Olbrychski
Karol Borowiecki
Wojciech Pszoniak
Moryc Welt
Andrzej Seweryn
Maks Baum
Kalina Jędrusik
Lucy Zuckerowa
Anna Nehrebecka
Anka
Bożena Dykiel
Mada Müller
Andrzej Szalawski
Herman Bucholz
Stanisław Igar
Grünspan
Franciszek Pieczka
Müller
Kazimierz Opaliński
Maks' Father
Andrzej Łapicki
Trawiński
Wojciech Siemion
Wilczek
Tadeusz Białoszczyński
Karol's Father
Zbigniew Zapasiewicz
Kessler
Jerzy Nowak
Zucker
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Wajda built a functional 19th-century factory set in Łódź that locals tried to have preserved as an actual museum.
The film was initially banned for 'anti-socialist elements' because Poland's communist censors missed that it critiques ALL economic systems equally brutally.
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