King Size (1987)

Original title

Kingsajz

Directed by

Juliusz Machulski

Genre

comedy film

Country

Poland

Runtime

1h 45m

Rating

6.8 of 10 from 95 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A little person from a secret underground kingdom escapes to the human world in late communist Poland. The story uses giant props and sets to show the size difference between the two worlds.

whimsicalsatiricalabsurdplayfuldatedescapistlighthearted

What happens

Kingsajz is a 1988 cult Polish comedy fantasy film directed by Juliusz Machulski. The action takes place in late communist Poland and in a fictional Lilliputian kingdom called Szuflandia (Drawerland), hidden deep underground the Quaternary Research Institute. The movie is an allegory of a communist regime and thus was received very enthusiastically by anti-communist society. Kingsajz used highly oversized props and sets, supervised by production designer Janusz Sosnowski, intended to capture the difference in size between the little people and the large things from the above ground world that they use. The Drawerland sets were built in Łódź Studio soundstages as wall-to-wall set-constructions. Some scenes were optically enhanced by matte painting by artists from Barrandov Studios. As of 2024, some of the largest surviving props from the film (such as a giant telephone, a gigantic lady's shoe, a car-sized iron teapot used in the krasnoludki land of Szuflandia / Drawerland, gate-sized kitchen utensils, and more) are displayed outside the Museum of Cinematography in Łódź. The film featured deliberate references to Machulski's earlier and even more famous comedy Vabank (itself a nod to the classic 1973 caper film The Sting) and its sequel Vabank II, by including the two characters of "Kwintek" and "Kramerko", played by the same actors who portrayed Vabank's protagonist, the principled safe-cracker Kwinto, and the antagonist, the crooked banker Kramer. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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