Fever

In Poland under Russian rule in 1905, members of an underground organisation build a bomb and plan to assassinate the governor. The bomb passes from hand to hand: from one carrier to the next, each time to another house and another plan. Nobody manages to use it. Everyone who carries it collapses in some way. The film is not interested in revolution. It is interested in an organisation consuming itself: suspicion of betrayal, waiting, arrests and informing from within. The bomb changing hands gives the film its structure, and each new custodian carries a little more hopelessness. The form is hard and dark: cramped rooms, night scenes, a grey Polish winter. The camera stays close even in crowds. Agnieszka Holland directed, from a story by Andrzej Strug. It competed at the 31st Berlin festival, where Barbara Grabowska won the Silver Bear for Best Actress. The film's fate matched its subject: two months after its domestic release martial law was declared in Poland, the film was shelved and Holland left the country. Who it is for: viewers who like Polish cinema and stories of political undergrounds. Who it is not for: anyone wanting an easy story to follow. The characters keep changing, the connections go unexplained and the film leaves the audience deliberately without bearings.