How I Fell in Love with a Gangster

The film describes a criminal figure whose name became a legend in Poland in the eighties and nineties: Nikoś. The story starts in Gdańsk and proceeds through car smuggling, the cigarette trade, clubs and relationships with politics. It is not told in his own voice but retrospectively, narrated by one of the women in his life. Maciej Kawulski directs. Tomasz Włosok takes the lead. It was released on Netflix. The character has a real basis. Nikodem Skotarczak was among the best known figures of the criminal world of the transition period in Poland and was killed in 1998; books were written about him and his life was publicly argued over for a long time. What interests the film is image rather than crime. Nikoś deliberately produces his own legend, and the narrative uses that not as a criticism but as direct material. That is also what was most criticised. The film tells the gangster's story with admiration and almost never shows what the violence costs; it was sharply attacked in Poland for it. It runs close to two and a half hours and the narrative is episodic, passing quickly over some periods. The period design is strong; late eighties Poland, the cars, the clubs and the border crossings are built in detail. Who it is for: anyone curious about gangster biography and Polish popular cinema. Who it is not for: the narrative is admiring, the women are functional, and it runs unnecessarily long.