"Gdy spadaja anioly" or "When Angels Fall" is a Polish 21-minute movie from almost 60 years ago. The writer and director (and actor) here is the really young Roman Polanski. The major difference compared to some of his other very early works is that this one here has actually some sequences in color, even if most of it is still black-and-white, which is fine looking at the year when it was made. Polanski plays an old woman on some occasions. Story-wise, I was not too impressed and it is a shame as the war sequences certainly offered the possibility of this becoming a better film than it actually turned out to be. All in all, I give it a negative rating as I must say I was not too impressed by it. Yes it was fine for a really young filmmaker, but not looking at his age, I cannot say this was a convincing achievement. I am fairly certain this film would not be very much known today anymore without the big name attached to it. But Polanski was improving, so it was fine I guess.

I acknowledge the uniqueness of this film, but that doesn't mean I enjoyed it. At least I'm being honest about it. The visuals were the most interesting facet, along with this old lady's face. Wow, what a face: a million wrinkles, most of them with a story. It was interesting that the present day part of this short film was in black-and-white and the flashbacks were in color. You would think the director would do the opposite. However, the director here is not your ordinary filmmaker. He's Roman Polanski, and this is one of his last short films before he began feature-length ones.

I've never heard of a female attendant in a men's lavatory, but that's what we have here. It's a depressing job, one in which one usually sits all day and has hour to contemplate. For this old woman, it was unpleasant memories of the past as each new customer reminds her of something tragic in her past.

The acting in here was poor but I'm sure young Polanski didn't have much of a budget to work with. It wasn't exactly like working with Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.

Like most of his short films, there is little to no dialog.....but it's really not needed. However, the sudden scene shifts from her apparent memories to scenes which she couldn't have witnessed (i.e. World War I battle scenes) were confusing. Maybe it just didn't get it. However, I appreciated the sentimentality in here, even if I didn't understand some of it.

To those who haven't seen any of Polanski's short films, be warned: this is quite different from films you are used to seeing. They used to have "art houses" where they would show "arty" films like this. I wonder if they are still around?

This was Polanski's graduation piece when he finished film school at Lodz, and it bears some striking differences to both his previous shorts and his later features. At the same time, it shows a maturing of his style and certainly was his most ambitious work up to that point.

Perhaps the most obvious difference is its beauty and sentimentality. Polanski films can of course be deep and emotional, but they don't tend to wallow in emotional sentimentality. The bittersweet tale of an elderly toilet attendant daydreaming about the memories of her youth hits a similar note to Kurosawa's Ikiru or even Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. This isn't a bad thing by any means. Polanski's attempt is a little obvious and heavy handed, but he demonstrates an ability to evoke emotions, and does create a truly beautiful film.

The fact that this was his graduation explains perhaps why Polanski seems to have been going for a universal appeal, as well as covering all his bases as far as technique and style go. There are touches of neo-realism, but mixed in with stylisation and pure fantasy. Significantly he also switches back and forth between monochrome and colour. For me one of Polanski's greatest strengths is his restraint in using colour. Look at Tess for example – a 170 minute film with absolutely no vivid colours until the final ten. And this same talent for colour composition is on display in his very first use of it, with plenty of deep greens and browns later to be offset by blood red.

More than in any of his previous shorts you really get to see here that Polanski simply had a natural talent for film-making. Where Angels Fall has a rhythm to it that some directors never achieve. Furthermore he tells a story across twenty minutes using only one line of dialogue – everything else is conveyed in characters and situations we can instantly grasp without words.

For me the biggest wrong note in Where Angels Fall is the war section. It shifts the narrative from the woman to the soldier, and events which she never witnessed – which is strange since the rest of the film is so intensely personal, in fact about half of it is point of view shots from the woman's perspective. This is also the most obvious and unoriginal part, making it look tacked on.

All in all, Where Angels Fall is a very well made and watchable short feature. It shows a side of Polanski rarely seen in any of his other work. On the other hand, it's not totally atypical Polanski, for example the public toilet where much of the action takes place is one of the earliest examples of his trademark claustrophobic interiors. If you're not put off by the sentimentality, it's a very enjoyable twenty minutes.