THE DANCING HAWK

Absolute madness! Using a panoply of disorienting camera tricks, Polish filmmaker Grzegorz Królikiewicz and his DP Zbig Rybczyński (who’d become an Oscar-winner just a few years later) chart the hazy story of a peasant’s son rising through the ranks of post-War society like none of his ancestors ever could. Moving to the city, he becomes part of a new socialist order. But in leaving his rural roots behind, does he also abandon his soul? Rybczynski's work here is so incredibly fascinating and so consistently inventive. Taking inspiration from CITIZEN KANE, this is a viscerally affecting portrait of a changing country through the fate of a man ruined by ambition.