Seksmisja

Poland • 1984 • 117m •

• Directed by: Juliusz Machulski. • Starring: Wieslaw Michnikowski, Jerzy Stuhr, Olgierd Lukaszewicz, Dorota Stalinska, Janusz Michalowski, Piotr Stefaniak, Juliusz Lubicz-Lisowski, Zofia Plewinska, Bozena Stryjkówna, Boguslawa Pawelec, Hanna Stankówna, Beata Tyszkiewicz, Ryszarda Hanin. • Music by: Henryk Kuzniak.

Two scientists are chosen as guinea pigs for a time experiment: they are placed in hibernation and should be brought back to life after three years. In the meantime, however, the World War III breaks out and life have been wiped out of the surface of the Earth. When they wake up, it turns out that not only 50 years have passed but also that they are the only living specimens of the male sex in a new, underground society composed exclusively of women. Max used to be woman-chaser so he finds himself in heaven. Albert, on the other hand, forgot all about love and sex as a serious scientist, but is willing to learn. So are the Amazons, who after a kiss turn into pliant kittens. The Council of Women is going to decide their fate, so they are trying to win more time.

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Review:

It's a rare gem which doesn't weather away for nearly 30 years, from Polish director Juliusz Machulski, it's a Sci-Fi satire, two men awake in 2044 from their prolonged hibernation (two guinea pigs for science devotion or other reasons whatsoever) find out they dwell in a girls- run-the-world civilization with an utter male-extinction premise, which sounds instinctively should prompt great source work for heterosexual porn movies, although the female sexual exploitation may not be dodged (for the audience's sake), the film's novelty lies in its satisfying and unexpected device of an utter revelry which defies genre savvy with whimsical set pieces and twists-and-turns, a parthenogenesis propagation laboratory, the neutralization or liquidation verdict (with the history-twisted gender-switch for Copernicus and Einstein, even more farcical to satirize Ms. Curie), the father-daughter "reunion", the ludicrous password " Fxxx" gag, not to mention the final anti-climate unveiling of "the third man", it is a rudimentary success in conveying its apolitical farce above all the presumably controversial bearings among the gender-sensitive, hegemony-wary, surveillance omnipresent, rebellion-quelling and eroticism-awakening nitpicking.

Two leading actors, Olgierd Lukaszewicz and Jerzy Stuhr, one prim, another more secular (at the beginning, their characteristics are manifestly reflected by the different knee-jerking responses towards a glass-cracking accident, an internal pressure or a bad omen) comprise an amiable pair, the now-ubiquitous neologism "bromance" can effortlessly find its own mirror here; various sleek and sensual women delineated here are mostly warrior-like outside, wooden and brainwashed inside, but eventually there will be two lucky ones who will fall prey as the rewards for the last two men standing. It's a mainstream smart move yet overall convincingly played out.

Decorated with a Sci-Fi milieu, the claustrophobic settings and synthesizer-produced electronic score can easily betray the film's 80s trappings, but Juliusz Machulski has a sober sense not to be too lenient in its thematically pie-in-the-sky orgy, when the film ends with an overlong close-up at a new-born baby's penis, it is a truly satisfactory culmination.

PS: if my memory serves me well, it is actually the second Polish film I've ever watched, heralds an auspicious starting point for me to perambulate this strange land.

Review by junkielee from the Internet Movie Database.

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