Pasikowski, Władysław

(1959-)

   Director-scriptwriter known for his action films made in the 1990s incorporating American models but with a distinctly Polish flavor. Pasikowski's first theatrical film, Kroll (1991), which also began his cooperation with the cinematogra-pher Paweł Edelman, presented a dark picture of the formerly taboo topic of the military and depicted a harsh, violent world reserved for equally violent and tough men with clear misogynist attitudes. A similar portrayal can be found in his subsequent films, The Pigs (Psy, 1992) and its sequel, The Pigs 2: The Last Blood (Psy 2: Ostatnia krew, 1994). The Pigs, one of the most influential Polish films of the 1990s, introduced Franciszek (Franz) Maurer (played memorably by Bogusław Linda), a lieutenant in the Communist secret police who tries to survive in an "age of verifications" after the return of democracy. The Pigs 2, commercially one of the most successful Polish films of the 1990s (the seventh most popular film in the 1990s with more than 684,000 viewers), reinforced images from the first part and provided references to the Balkan Wars. Later films by Pasikowski also resembled the style of American action films. This was evident in films such as The War Demons according to Goya (Demony wojny według Goyi, 1998) and Reich (2001), the latter of which offered almost a parody of Pasikowski's style. In recent years he directed The Cop (Glina, 2003-2004), a popular television crime series starring Jerzy Radziwiłowicz.

   Other films: Bitter-Sweet (Słodko-gorzki, 1996), Operation Samum (Operacja Samum, 1999).

   Historical Dictionary of Polish Cinema by Marek Haltof