A Polish comedy from 1988 that won awards at film festivals and has a really good IMDB rating, but most of the few reviews complain that it is not funny and involves toilet humor. What's going on?
I don't speak Polish, so I had to rely on the subtitles. I also didn't grow up in a socialist country, but as someone who grew up in a West German family with contacts to East Germany, it seems I have enough of a cultural affinity to this film to really enjoy it.
The main premise of this film: Hidden in the basement of a Polish library, there is a society of tiny dwarfs, all male, living on the trash of the 'king sized' normal human society. This premise has a lot of potential for funny scenes, and the film makes full use of it. We see ordinary objects such as safety pins and egg slicers in a completely new light.
The dwarfs have certain magic abilities, but that's not very important for the plot. What really matters is the secret 'king size' formula for a potion that enables the dwarfs to temporarily become citizens of the normal world. And meet women! Much like was the case with Seksmisja (1984) four years earlier (a film that is actually alluded to in a dialog),there is potential for a sex comedy here, which is used only to a very limited extent. The toilet humor that one reviewer objected to similarly is present but is not overdone to the point that it's fair to complain about it.
The film's political dimension is obvious to me, so it must certainly have been obvious to contemporary Polish audiences -- and censors. It is amazing that such a film was already possible at the time. It came out in the year before the fall of the Iron Curtain.
The dwarf king suppresses his subjects in much the same well-intentioned style in which socialist governments dealt with their populations. A few subjects get the privilege of temporarily leaving the kingdom and enjoying the wonders of the king sized world. However, if they don't use the trick of trinking a certain capitalist wonder potion, they must return.
The film's allegorical dimension becomes completely transparent when the happy end suddenly turns into a nasty surprise.
7.3Plot summary
Journalist Olgierd Jedlina seems to be obsessed with the themes somehow connected to the dwarfs and not the little people, but dwarfs as in fairy tales. There is a reason to that - he is a dwarf himself and he used to live in one of the drawers in place known as Drawersland (Szuflandia). But now he is in what dwarfs call King Size, which means that he is no different from people. The dwarfs can live among the people completely unnoticed as long as they will drink Polo-Cocta, otherwise they would shrink back to their small form. Olgierd is one of the dwarfs that were lucky enough to gain access to Polo-Cocta, but the ruthless leader of Drawersland wants to keep all the dwarfs in the small form threating any of the Polo-Cocta drinking dwarfs as traitors. But Olgierd is forced to return to Drawersland when his friend is arrested. What sounds like completely insane story for children is in fact one of the best sci fi comedies, although you have to understand the background of the production. King Size was created in times when Poland was still a communist country and the citizens were usually unable to leave Poland on their own free will. Juliusz Machulski, author of few great comedies, managed to parody the whole communist system by turning the story into fairy-tale like production, where actors are working with giant props. A must see - great comedy that parodies any dictatorship country even in present times.
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Movie Reviews
Weird and ribald comedy, with a surprisingly transparent political message
A shallow, vapid and humorless treaty
I always wondered what good could be found in this absolute flop of Juliusz Machulski? Well, if you say this film is a satire on the Polish Communist years, then, the question easily arises why more than 50 % of Poles still recollect the Soviet years with a great warmth and nostalgia? Let's put the political problems aside. The movie, then. It is a shame to have made such a shallow and humorless try in the style of Monty Python but with much more cynical (and not funny) sexual innuendos, with less humor and less tact. The top (or, rather, the bottom) of this vapid film is the moment when a dwarfish man get into a female vagina and thus gives her gratification. This borders on with the pornography and leaved you with a deep disgust. I only may ask why such a talented director made such a bad and senseless work?
don't kick this man, my dear, or you'll get tired
Many people try to see this movie ONLY as satire on "soviet times" in Poland. If you do so you just loose a great opportunity to have great time with one of the best polish comedies. Imagine people who have to drink "Polo Cockta" (polish imitation of Coke and simultaneously a symbol of polish tries to be as good as "the western world" many years ago) just to stay in their actual (human) size. When you stop drinking it you can get into quite different world, where everything is minimized, but with usage of elements of the "big world" (imagine having a bath i a tea-pot...). When you have too little to share, you have to... shrink people. (It's quite funny idea to solve polish problems of the eighties, when we lacked of mostly everything:). This movie is definitely worth watching. Pity not all polish jokes are translatable but... when you "get dwarfed" you will understand.. Oh yes you will..:)