In 1952 Andrzej Munk made Pamietniki Chłopow (Peasant Diaries), a propaganda film that intended to portray the how blissful and secure the lives of Polish peasants in post-war Poland had become. His later work on the other hand, while not standing out as opposing the regime, puts stress on showing the value of human labour and the efforts of the working class. Kolejarskie Słowo (A Railwayman’s Word) is a story about the work of railwaymen who overcome obstacles to carry out their task – carrying a shipment for the steel mill to its destination on time. Apart from breaking with the ideological model, Munk’s documentaries were also valuable for their innovative and sophisticated form. In A Railwayman’s Word, Munk builds the drama with the train’s motion, he juxtaposes movement with immobility and uses sound as a counterpoint to the image. Similarly, the critics emphasise the artistry with which Munk extracts the drama of the natural scenery in his short film Gwiazdy Muszą Płonąć (Stars Must Burn) where he captures men going down to an old coal mine shaft.
Gradually Munk began to ‘fictionalise’ his documentaries, and calling them ‘dramatised documentaries’, he uses authentic machines and workers but stages various scenes. The Men of the Blue Cross was called Munk’s last documentary by some, and his first feature film by others. Based on a literary text, that dealt with real events, the film featured professional actors and amateurs re-enacting past events in which they had taken part.
In 1958 he made the first of his most famous films, Eroica, followed by the second in 1960, Zezowate szczęście (Bad Luck). Dubbed an ‘anti-heroic’ film, Eroica aims to demystify the archetypal image of heroism. Set during WWII, the film tells two tales of courage and valour which show the atmosphere of foolhardy heroism which even influences those not concerned with becoming heroes. Dzidzius, a seemingly irresponsible and selfish man finally joins the uprising against the Nazis he is turned into a hero. The second tale is set in a POW camp whose Polish inmates cling to their hopes for an eventual escape, encouraged by the legendary yet entirely fictional escape of one of the prisoner. Munk’s specificity lies in his objective drive to unveil an objective truth and defend rationalism. Film critic E. Nurczynska-Fidelska wrote:
Making 'Eroica' and 'Bad Luck' Munk stood next to those who play the role of ‘mockers’ in processes of shaping national and cultural awareness. Their scorn and mockery fulfils a cleansing function, though, aimed at rejecting mythologized values and developing new ones.
In Passenger, his last and unfinished film, Munk reached for a different, serious language which was no longer mockery but continued to deal with heroism. Fascinated with the story of two women, a guard and a prisoner of a concentration camp, which he heard on the radio, he presented a new dimension to freedom. Marta, a prisoner, creates her beautiful humanity within the confines of imprisonment, unlike the officers in Eroica, she does not create a national myth of freedom but defends freedom as her private, intimate cause.
Andrzej Munk’s youth fell under the time of Nazi occupation. He took part in the armed resistance movement, later took on various jobs, working as a labourer and a technician. After the war, he started a course in architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology, then studied law but failed to finish either. In 1951 he graduated from the Łódź Film School. From 1957 until his death he was a lecturer at the Łódź Film School. He was killed in a car crash in 1961, leaving the film Passenger unfinished. Since 1965, the Łódź film School has granted an annual Andrzej Munk Award for the best directing debut.