 
 1-800-955-5566 
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EASTERN EUROPE NOW! ScratchRysa
MICHAL ROSA
In Polish with English subtitles
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1-800-955-5566
|
|
EASTERN EUROPE NOW! ScratchRysa
MICHAL ROSA
In Polish with English subtitles
|
In the middle of the night, following their forty-something anniversary party in Kracow, sixtyish academics Joanna (Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieslak) and Jan (Krzysztof Stroinski) are surprised to find a videocassette amongst their gifts with a TV documentary suggesting Jan was an agent of the Polish People's Republic secret service and that their long-time marriage was thus a scam engineered by the communist surveillance apparatus. Over the next year Joanna withdraws from not only Jan but life itself, even as she does some sporadic sleuthing to discover elusive truths about her husband and their life together. Throughout, Jan proclaims his innocence. "Everybody keeps something under wraps," says a journalist, and the thrust of the aptly named, impeccably acted Scratch is to speculate how many lives of others were torn asunder by state interference during the darkest days of communist rule—and the ripple effect that repression has had on families today.—Eddie Cockrell