"Teddy Bear", directed by Stanislaw Bareja, is a polish comedy showing nonsesnse and absurdity of everyday life in the late 70s and 80s. These were years when Poland was ruled by the Communist Party and the filmmakers had to write a script with many metaphors and allusions in order to avoid censorship.

The movie tells a fairly complicated story about the problems of departure from Poland. Ryszard Ochodzki, called Teddy Bear, is a president of a state-sponsored sport club “Rainbow”. For those times he is a big fish – he has highly placed friends, is doing shady business and have money in an account in London. And here is a big problem. He is just after the divorce and his ex-wife also can take their savings from this account. So he have to get to London as soon as possible and transfer that money to a diffrent bank, but it is not easy to get out of a communist country. The ex-wife Irena has destroyed Ryszard's passport, what means big trouble with getting a new one. And here begin the incredibly complicated actions like searching understudy, trying the marriage with another Irena, lying to the new mistress and and blocking the departure of ex-wife.

Screenplay of "Teddy Bear" is designed so that it is impossible to be bored for a moment. The main plot is enriched by more and more new scenes that show hilarious situations - buing meat in a newsagents, movie casting with non-actors, hunting for hare (which is playing by a cat), the airport with always delayed flights. The screenplay is so rich, that is good to see this movie more than one time. Every time you can see new detail or understand a hidden joke or allusion. Many phrases and sayings from this movie are now a part of our culture. Everyone in Poland knows these quotes. If you do not believe, ask anyone why coffee and WZ-cake are obligatory or what song sings coach Jarząbek to the closet.

I highly recomended "Teddy Bear". It is an entertaining film, but is is also a cult movie for Poles. If you want to know and understand Polish language and culture, it is absolutely necessary to see this movie. It seems to be just a comedy, but it tells a lot about those years and the life of Poles. Though it shows everything in a distorting mirror, but “There is a truth of time and a truth of movie screen” - it is also a quote from "Teddy Bear".

• movie
• poland
• culture