If we are to talk about the masterpiece of Polish film, it would undoubtedly be the film Pharaoh by Jerzy Kawalerowicz.

It is an adaptation of the novel from 1896 written by Boleslaw Prus (pseudonym) properly Aleksander Glowacki, a journalist and one of the leading Polish writers.

Like the film, the book analyzes two concepts of exercising power in the face of the threat of crisis and aggression of neighboring countries. Alternative detection are diplomatic measures or preventive armed reaction? A problem that is very current in our time and not just about politics.

The author of the novel set the story in Ancient Egypt on the historical fiction of Ramses XIII. We don’t know such a pharaoh of Egypt. The film contains a lot of inaccuracies and it is difficult to find the historical period in which the plot takes place. The presence of Jewish settlers is the XXVI dynasty, but the thread of the conflict between the monarchy authorities and priests in the form of attempts to overthrow the temples took place during the time of Amenhotep IV Akhenaten – Echnaton(1351-1335 BC) and it is the dynasty XVIII. The film refers to the XIX dynasty and the period of 400 years after the attempt to overthrow the priesthood, but it was the end of the XXI dynasty and actually the reign of the High Priests of the Temple of Amun and there should be no pharaoh. That is why we cannot consider this film as historical, which does not bother us to convey to the viewer the climate of those times and intrigues that usually occur in the environment of exercising power. We have corruption, manipulation, indebtedness, economic stagnation by mindless decisions, the domination the church, and assassinations of political activists. The author’s reference to ancient times is an attempt to show that certain power mechanism do not change over time.

The film was shot with panache and in very difficult conditions, today movies are made on computers but in the sixties the scenes had to be realistic. The movie set was the real Kyzyl-Kum desert under Buchar in Uzbekistan and the real army was 2000 soldiers of the Soviet Union. In the battle scene they move sluggishly, maybe because the opponent did not have watches* or maybe because at noon on the set the temperature heated objects to 60 degrees Celsius. Every day, 10.000 liter bottles of mineral water were delivered to the set. There is no official information on production costs, but is believed that Pharaoh by Kawalerowicz is the most expensive film in the history of Polish cinema. (Brux)

*) During World War II, Red Army soldiers were allowed to rob civilians of watches, which constituted wealth status for the Russians.

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