A propaganda film whose plot follows the postulates of socialist realism defined a year earlier at the Film Makers Rally in Wisła. The picture promotes the idea of collaboration between artists and laborers and looking for artistic inspiration among the working class. It’s worth paying attention to the intriguing “story within a story” type of narration, the “theater in a film” formula and the skillfully outlined yet very superficial analogies between the characters.
The film “Dwie brygady” made by a group of students from the Łódź Film School was a collective feature debut of such artists as: Janusz Nasfeter, Wadim Berestowski, Romuald Kropat and Kurt Weber. The screenplay was written by Eugeniusz Cękalski, dean of the Film and TV Direction Department at the Łódź Film School, his wife Krystyna and Edward Szuster, a lecturer at the same school. They used authentic art of Vaska Kania – a writer from former Czechoslovakia as the starting point.
Rehearsals for the play “Brygada szlifierza Karhana” are underway in a small theater. The play promotes the concept of competition at work. While the young team members are full of enthusiasm, the older actors, used to classic repertoire, cannot play laborers convincingly. The desperate director sends the artists to a nearby factory, so that they can see how real grinders work and behave. It turns out that the factory also has a problem with a growing conflict between two generations: pre-war specialists are not keen on the new methods of work that are imposed upon them and who frown upon fast careers of the young people. The contact between artists and laborers allows both parties to understand their arguments and collaborate for their common sake.
