HAUT LES MAINS !

By : Jerzy Skolimowski

With : Jerzy Skolimowski, Joanna Szczerbic, Tadeusz Momnicki, Adam Hanuszkiewicz, Bogumil Kobiela, Alan Bates, Jane Asher
Pologne, 1967 et 1981, 1.66, 76 minutes et 90 minutes
DVD zone 2, N&B et couleur,


Not available for sale now


English title: HANDS UP!
Original title: RECE DO GORY

By : Jerzy Skolimowski

With : Jerzy Skolimowski, Joanna Szczerbic, Tadeusz Momnicki, Adam Hanuszkiewicz, Bogumil Kobiela, Alan Bates, Jane Asher
Pologne, 1967 et 1981, 1.66, 76 minutes et 90 minutes
DVD zone 2, N&B et couleur,

Not available for sale now

Original Polish version with French subtitles
2 DVD, 3 versions of the film

HANDS UP! is a Polish drama film directed by Jerzy Skolimowski. It is the fourth of a series of semi-autobiographical films in which Skolimowski himself plays his alter ego, Andrzej Leszczyc. The film was originally made in 1967 in monochrome. In a twenty minute section (filmed in colour) added by Skolimowski in 1981 he explains how the original was withheld by Polish censors of the time, and that this was a principal cause of his leaving his country; however following liberalisation in Poland, he was invited to resuscitate it. The introduction includes, apart from some fictional apocalyptic passages, shots of Beirut ruined by the civil wars of the 1970s, where Skolimowski is working as an actor on Volker Schloendorff's German film CIRCLE OF DECEIT, and also shots of London featuring demonstrations in favour of Solidarnosc, Speaker's Corner, and an exhibition of Skolimowski's own paintings. These sections include cameo roles by Bruno Ganz, David Essex, Mike Sarne and others. Some of the music in this introduction is from the 1970 choral work "Kosmogonia" by the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki.

The original film is a surrealistic reunion of Leszczyc (who has apparently become a veterinary surgeon) and some of his student colleagues. They refer to themselves by the makes of the cars they own - Leszczyc owns a Zastawa, one owns a Wartburg, the others own more upmarket models such as an Opel Rekord or the Alfa Romeo owned by the unhappily married couple. Supposedly taking speed (although it is later revealed the pills are a placebo), and carousing in the cattle truck of a freight train, the group offers various satirical sidelights on Polish society of the 1960s. The characters also reflect that the truck may have been one of those in which the former generation were transported during World War II to the Nazi death camps.

The film was screened out of competition at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival.

For the first time on DVD : the 3 version of HANDS UP!

DVD 1 : Original restored version 1967 (76 min - B&W - 1,66) + 1981 restored version with the colored prologue (90 mn, B&W and color, 1.66)

DVD 2 : Colored version (1981, 90 mn, B&W and color, 1.66) + CONTRE LA MONTRE, documentary by Damien Bertrand (52 mn · 2008)

Bonus: Chapters, Bookets 16 pages : "A conversation with the young Polish director" (FILM COMMENT, 1968) and Interview of J. Skolimowski (PLUS CAMERIMAGE, 2010), pictures of the shooting, Filmografy

Release: March the 15th 2012


Watch a video excerpt :