Intimate to an almost uncomfortable degree, the 1967-set drama “Little Rose” invokes the twin devils of Iron Curtain paranoia and Polish anti-Semitism.
Jan Kidawa-Blonski’s emotionally devastating political thriller unfolds in a world where a pilfered document, an overheard conversation or even a malicious rumor is sufficient to ruin a person’s life. And those with the power to destroy their fellow citizens, on a hunch or a whim, hang by a thread themselves.
If they are too arrogant to realize it, well, they’ll get no sympathy from us — or from those they would destroy.
“Little Rose” screens four times in the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. It is one of eight films the festival is spotlighting with the theme “Poland and the Jews.”
This shadowy film takes place right after the Six-Day War, when Polish Jews were assumed to have divided loyalties. It was a ridiculous notion, that Israel would claim allegiance over Poland. Like other members of the intelligentsia, Jews were opposed to the totalitarian regime; what they worked toward, however, was a free Poland.
A secret policeman, Roman Rozek (played with blunt-instrument force by Robert Wieckiewicz), is pressured by his boss to get the goods on a respected writer and professor. Desperate to deliver, Rozek pushes his lover, the striking Kamila (who coyly chooses the code name Little Rose), to insinuate herself into the Jewish intellectual’s good graces, and then his bed.
Adam Warczewski (a finely tuned Andrzej Seweryn) is everything Rozek is not: dignified, well mannered, thoughtful, principled and cultured. They are also, for that matter, diametric opposites in the sack. It doesn’t take a movie savant to deduce that our would-be femme fatale will be the one switching allegiances.
Kamila (the brave and frequently unclothed Magdalena Boczarska, who is scheduled to attend the San Francisco screening with the director), the linchpin of “Little Rose,” is a political naif whose unquestioned loyalty to the state is punctured by just a little exposure to original thinking.
Indeed, this may be the film’s most important, albeit hardly groundbreaking, moral: An educated populace and the free transmission of ideas are the best weapons against tyranny.
The screenplay casts Rozek as the villain, capable of brutal violence and incapable of reflection. However, there’s a hint that he may be a closeted Jew himself. If so, his aggression stems from concealing his secret, which makes him a victim as well.
The festival program note alludes to the crackerjack 2006 German film “The Lives of Others,” and the comparison is not inapt. Like that movie’s loyal intelligence operative, Rozek comes to the unhappy realization that the dissidents have higher principles — and more stimulating and satisfying lives — than do he and his ruthlessly Machiavellian cohorts.
But it is neither Rozek’s existential dilemma nor his career path that compels us, but the exit routes, such as they are, available to the comparatively innocent Kamila and the deceived Warczewski.
“Little Rose” has its minor flaws; it’s less than subtle in places, and it has a few repetitive and unnecessary scenes. But it delivers where it counts: It involves us completely with its characters, and makes us care deeply about their fates.
Well, two of them, at any rate. And that’s more than enough to set up a gripping, haunting ending.
“Little Rose” screens July 26 at 6 p.m. at the Castro Theatre, Aug. 2 at 6:30 p.m. at the Roda in Berkeley, Aug. 6 at 6:20 p.m. at the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto and Aug. 7 at 6:20 p.m. at the Rafael Film Center in San Rafael.