Woman in a Hat

Ewa (Hanna Mikuć) is an actress in a Warsaw theatre, currently playing a minor role in Bruno Jasieński’s The Mannequins’ Ball, yet she hopes for a more important part in King Lear. In the 1980s in Poland those who are sensitive and hungry for beauty can only use their imagination to fantasize and connect spiritually with literature as well as their fragile mates. Woman in a Hat creates a delicate, subtle atmosphere of reverie and irony, letting us into the inner world of a young woman. Ewa does not want to be a part of social arrangements, and quickly recognizes those who are posing and showing off. Różewicz’s masterpiece, which combines Jerzy Wójcik’s precise cinematography with dreamlike elements, is most importantly Hanna Mikuć’s tour de force. Her Ewa is strikingly beautiful, reflective, gentle, and stubbornly independent at the same time. The film received the Golden Lions Award at the 10^th Polish Film Festival in Gdańsk in 1985.

Sebastian Smoliński