Day 16: "Hijacking Agatha" - A Little Polish Love (and a bit with the dog)

Film 16: "Hijacking Agatha" (1993)

Written and Directed by Marek Piwowski

Yay! At last, some help!

My darling friend Nancy Fisk stopped by today to watch one of my queue – an obscure little 1993 Polish film, “Hijacking Agatha.” Not many would be this brave, and even braver, Nancy agreed to say a little bit about it! Without further ado, heeeerrree’s Nancy!!!

On “Hijacking Agatha:”
“This is supposed to be a Polish Romeo and Juliet, which it lives up to most of the time. The parallels aren’t exact but they’re there. Tybalt the angry cousin, is the son of a Congressman, Juliet is Agatha, the innocent but horny teenage girl, Romeo is a gypsy named Gypsy, and Friar Laurence is a cop who makes good the escape from the angry parents. What I appreciated about this movie is that Agatha is stunning and Gypsy is someone I would run away with on a moment’s notice. I would run away with Gypsy’s father, who is a dead ringer for Peter Graves, and a charmer with the women himself. You can see where Gypsy gets his charm from.

Where the movie falls down is continuity. We don’t really know why they are in an apartment with newspapers in the window. Or why a camera crew comes there and then leaves for a recording studio. There’s a dog, who appears and disappears as is convenient. And why Agatha doesn’t figure out that her house is bugged and she shouldn’t call home after the first time is beyond us.”

Agreed, agreed! Quite an entertaining way to see into the immediate post-Communist era of Polish culture, and campy enough to sustain interest through the frequent non-sequiters. This includes the bizarro, half-done subtitles, like “That basted!” and “We will see her for her with her.” Probably not a normal Friday night flick, but I know most of you aren’t expecting normal…