Underplayed Gems

Men of Blue Cross (1955)

Men of Blue Cross poster
Original title
Błękitny krzyż
Directed by
Andrzej Munk
Genre
drama film
Country
Poland
Runtime
1h 01m
Rating
6.2 of 10 from 10 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More films like this

How it feels

In 1945, a mountain rescue team in Poland evacuates a partisan hospital by moving it through a war front. The film mixes documentary footage with a scripted story about their escape.

documentary-stylestarkfocusedearnestmatter-of-factrestrainedgrounded

What happens

Men of the Blue Cross (Polish: Błękitny krzyż) is a Polish war narrative-documentary film from 1955 directed by Andrzej Munk, based on Adam Liberak's short story Journey for Life. The film reconstructs the authentic action of the Tatra Volunteer Search and Rescue, which in February 1945 evacuated a partisan mountain hospital through the German-Soviet front line during World War II. In the Men of the Blue Cross, narrated by Gustaw Holoubek, some of the participants of that action appeared, including Stanisław Gąsienica Byrcyn and Stanisław Marusarz. Men of the Blue Cross served as a bridge for Munk between his previous documentary work and later achievements in narrative filmmaking. However, the experiment of combining two types of film did not appeal to the contemporary film critics, who criticized Munk for indecisiveness regarding the adopted convention. Only years later was the Men of the Blue Cross partially rehabilitated, largely due to the presence of non-professional actors and the cinematography of Sergiusz Sprudin. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.