Released in 1981 and immediately banned by the communist government, Agnieszka Holland’s striking film about anarchists and a bomb is a powerful exploration of revolutionary ideals. 

Based on Andrzej Strug’s 1910 novel The Story of a Bullet, Holland’s film is ostensibly a biography of a bomb and the young militants opposing Poland’s Tsarist regime who come in contact with it. Set in 1905, it follows a collective of characters bound by the passing between them of a bomb intended for the Tsarist governor general. Among these are Leon, an unofficial leader, and Kama (Barbara Grabowska, in her Berlinale Best Actress winning role), whose suffering points to the danger of blind devotion to ideology of all kinds.

Released in the midst of the anti-communist strikes that led to Poland’s Solidarity Movement, Holland’s film is a vital document against oppression, as brutally significant now as it was before the collapse of communism across Eastern Europe.

“A unique film in Holland’s oeuvre.” – Senses of Cinema