One of the creators of the 'Polish School,' Andrzej Munk (1921-1961) would leave an indelible mark in his forty years on this earth with 1956's Man on the Tracks - a tale told in flashback sequence of a simple engine-driver (Kazimierz Opalinski ) who is attacked and persecuted for the mere fact he is an old an obstinate man. Eventually he becomes a hero but loses his life in the interim on the tracks where he selflessly averts a train crash. Poland at the time was in a state of political unrest, with daily public demonstrations and a changeover of government; and this film became symbolic of the tragic years that preceded its production. It would also introduce the subjective perception of a perishing world of reality, a reality implausible in the Stalinist cinema, since it clearly emphasized the viewpoint of the individual.
Until his accidental death in 1961, Munk perpetuated his examination of the Polish past : Eroica (1957) was an episodic feature film consisting of a comedy set in wartime Warsaw and an ironic tragedy unfolding in a POW camp; and Zezowate szczescie (Bad Luck,1960) was a satirical portrait of a devoted albeit unsuccessful follower of political fashion, who is always out of step with the march of time and on the brink of a breakdown. His last film; the unfinished (Passenger,1961) was completed and released in the year 1963, concerning the perspectives of two women, a prisoner and a guard in a concentration camp. Inspired by his participation in the Warsaw Uprising and with his profound and borderline grotesque sense of irony and contrast, Munk was thoroughly convinced that through the demystifying of the past, both society and the individuals therein would feel at last a sense of liberation.
