The night of 20/21 August 1968. Lieutenant Grążel, carrying a package from command, hammers on the gate of his armoured unit. The package contains papers promoting Grążel to captain and his wife - the unit commander - to the rank of major, and orders for the tank unit to march on Czechoslovakia as part of the Warsaw Pact's brotherly assistance. Lieutenant Jakubczak hurriedly swears in a group of young soldiers, the battalion falls into formation and heads out through the gate. Major Grążel issues her final orders, including one regarding "Ladybird", a worthy T-34 tank which ended its combat trail with the Polish Second Army in Czechoslovakia in 1945. Its task now is to return to Czechoslovakia as the pride of the unit and a sign of their readiness to repel the attacks of revisionist forces. Sergeant Edek is appointed the tank's commander and selects his crew: driver Romek (off duty - the major's lover), Florian who was expelled from university after March 1968{C}{C}{C}, and Jaś, Edek's nephew whose role model is Janek Kos, the hero of the popular TV series Czterej pancerni i pies / Four Tank Men and a Dog.
"Ladybird" sets off for battle far behind the rest of the battalion, crossing the Polish-Czech border at night. The crew lose their way and the tank enters a quiet little town where people are having a retirement party for the stationmaster, Mr Kulka, at the local inn. Suddenly the tank with its confused Polish crew ploughs into the inn, demolishing a wall and destroying a large part of the interior. The Czechs are cool towards the intruders, but within a few hours the tense relations between the intervening forces and the locals grow slightly warmer - some part in this being played by Czech beer and the Polish soldiers' masculine charm...
A comedy of many flavours - from barracks farce to lyrical romantic comedy, this film from Jacek Głomb (a respected theatre director, manager of Legnica's Helena Modrzejewska Theatre which has become one of Poland's most original theatres under his leadership) touches on a topic as yet unseen in cinema. Neither the Czechs nor the Poles nor any other nation taking part in "Operation Danube" have made a film on those events.
"It's a bit of a disgrace that the Poles and not we are making this film", the great Czech director Jiři Menzel, winner of an Oscar for his Closely Watched Trains, who plays one of the leading parts in Jacek Głomb's film and is the project's artistic supervisor, admits in the distributor's materials. "As far as I know, they're making a film about 1968 now in the Czech Republic. It's a little late, after 40 years. A film like that should have been made long ago. But I'm glad this topic has been covered from the Polish viewpoint."
This is what Jacek Głomb thinks:
"Few ideas open up so many possibilities: here we have a piece of tragic 20th-century history, we have dreams of freedom crushed by tanks, we have a Švejk-style pacifist satire on war, finally we have a pastiche of a war adventure film in the style of 'Czterej pancerni' / 'Four Tank Men'. All this unfolds in a reality taken straight from Hašek, Hrabal, and Havel. Could there be a better idea for a Polish-Czech comedy? This will be a Polish-Czech film because it's about the shared history of Poles and Czechs, often recorded in family memories, often mentioned at home but still largely unknown, not publicized. As a result, many young Poles don't 'see any issue' and their knowledge of the events of several decades ago is almost nil."
The film is targeted at a young audience - presenting the reality of 40 years ago, it aims to show how greatly everyday life was influenced by ideology, recall the language of propaganda, and show how tight the blockade on information was. The Czechs see the Polish soldiers not so much as enemy invaders as a group of barbarians lost - literally and figuratively - in an unfamiliar world. It takes just a few moments of mutual contacts for the two sides to win each other's respect, find similarities they share, and start wanting to do something together.
In its formal aspects, Operacja Dunaj / Operation Danube is an attempt at a film in the spirit of Czech cinema - both from 40 years ago, saturated with new-wave documentary character, and present-day cinema which grew from the tradition of the prose of Hašek, Hrabal, and Havel. The attempt not only is successful but also gains credibility through the participation of leading Czech actors - apart from Menzel, it features Eva Holubova, Bolek Polivka, and Rudolf Hrušinsky Jr, as well as Polish actors - Zbigniew Zamachowski, Maciej Stuhr, Tomasz Kot, and actors from the Legnica theatre. The latter actors staged Robert Urbański's play Operacja Dunaj / Operation Danube under Jacek Głomb's direction, the original inspiration for the film.
- Operacja Dunaj / Operation Danube, Poland/Czech Republic 2009. Director: Jacek Głomb, screenplay: Jacek Kondracki, Robert Urbański, cinematography: Jacek Petrycki, music: Bartosz Straburzyński, set design: Małgorzata Bulanda, Marek Warszewski, Milan Býček, costumes: Małgorzata Bulanda, editing: Jiří Brožek, sound: Jacek Hamera, artistic supervision: Jiři Menzel. Cast: Eva Holubova (Andrea), Jiří Menzel (Oskar), Zbigniew Zamachowski (Grążel), Maciej Stuhr (Florian), Przemysław Bluszcz (Romek), Jaroslav Dušek (Gustav), Boleslav Polivka (Jiří), Bogdan Grzeszczak (Edek), Joanna Gonschorek (Major Grążel), Maciej Nawrocki (Jasiu), Tomasz Kot (porucznik January Jakubczak). Production: Documentary and Feature Film Studio (WFDiF) - In Film Praha - Odra-Film. Co-financed by: Polish Film Institute. Distribution: Monolith Films. Length: 110 min. Released on 14 August 2009.
Author: Konrad J. Zarębski, June 2009