The Maids of Wilko

The Maids of Wilko is a 1979 Polish drama film directed by Andrzej Wajda. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 52nd Academy Awards. "Maids" is used in the sense of "maidens", hence another translation could be The Maidens of Wilko.

Plot

At the age of 40, Wiktor Ruben returns to the family property where he'd spent his late teens/early twenties as a tutor of young sisters. Now they are all adult women - mostly wives and mothers. Wiktor discovers that Fela, once the closest to him, has been dead for some time; the other sisters aren't keen to talk about her, and her grave is mostly forgotten. He is also disappointed by how all the women have changed. Julia, now a mother of two, doesn't resemble his first object of desire and doesn't show him the affection he might have expected. Jola, seemingly unhappy in her marriage, chases him and makes fun of him until he doesn't bring the painful memories of the past. Kazia, a divorcee - and thus treated as less worthy than the others - is the most demanding partner of his intellectual reflections, while Zosia is - as always - distant and outspoken. That leaves him with Tunia, who was only a child when he previously knew her, and who now resembles Fela. Wiktor spends time in Wilko, but isn't able to see that his return restored once forgotten dreams and hopes to the sisters.

Cast

Daniel Olbrychski as Wiktor Ruben
Anna Seniuk as Julcia
Maja Komorowska as Jola
Stanisława Celińska as Zosia
Krystyna Zachwatowicz as Kazia
Christine Pascal as Tunia
Zbigniew Zapasiewicz as Julcia's Husband
Zofia Jaroszewska as Wiktor's Aunt
Tadeusz Białoszczyński as Wiktor's Uncle
Paul Guers as Jola's Husband

Possible reasons for the critical recognition

The film is based on a popular short story written in the early 1930s by famous Polish poet Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz who even appears as himself near the end of the movie. Andrzej Wajda previously filmed another short story of Iwaszkiewicz, The Birch Wood in 1970 and would go to film yet another, Sweet Rush, in 2009. This particular film features impressive cast, very good score and is otherwise technically brilliant. It received some awards in Poland and was nominated for an Oscar which it lost to The Tin Drum. Much of this happened because of deliberately avoiding anything that would trigger censorship from the communist authorities that governed Poland at that time. It is quite possible that the whole production was the results of games of influence inside the government-controlled film monopoly in Poland. It appears that the director Andrzej Wajda had built around himself enough buffer space to produce a clearly anti-communist film just two years later, Man of Iron.