From the rich biography of Jerzy Kulej, Xawery Żuławski and Rafał Lipski, who wrote the script with him, chose the peak period of the athlete’s career. We meet the boxing legend when he wins the gold medal at the 1974 Olympic Games in Tokyo and we accompany him in preparations for the games held in Mexico four years later. During this time, Kulej starts a family, but also faces his own weaknesses – his love of adventures, brawls and alcohol, which caused him a number of private and professional problems, almost ending his sports career. And only luck and strength of character allowed him to stand in the Olympic ring again and, as the only Polish boxer in history, achieve his second successive triumph.
It’s a fascinating story and its film version was promised from the very beginning as a hail of strong, accurate blows that would knock down the film’s opponents. Behind the camera, the creator of the cult “Wojna polsko-ruska”, an incredibly charismatic director, winner of the Golden Claw in Gdynia for “Apokawixa”. The title role is played by Tomasz Włosok – one of the most talented young Polish actors, last year’s winner of the Award. Zbyszek Cybulski, who spent hundreds of hours on boxing training while preparing for the role. And as a guarantor of quality – the production company Watchout Studio, which a decade ago revolutionized Polish thinking about film biographies, winning Gdynia with the film “Gods” by Łukasz Palkowski, which attracted 2.2 million viewers to cinemas.
“Like. Two sides of a coin” [trailer 2]
press materials
And indeed, from the first frames, we feel that we are in the same “watchout” universe, which, apart from “Gods”, also includes “The Art of Loving. The Story of Michalina Wisłocka” by Maria Sadowska (2017). Recreated in the film details of the Polish People’s Republic: the famous boxing Hala Gwardii, soaked in sweat and cigarette smoke, which is the arena of the Sports Champions’ Ball, the Palace of Culture and Science, shining with the glow of party power and agency, and finally the streets of Warsaw – from the bustling downtown to the dark areas of Prague, evoking associations with the “Evil ” Tyrmanda. In all this, Kulej – a boxer loved by the crowds, a great dancer and a drinking companion, and at the same time a second lieutenant of the Citizens’ Militia employed as a fictitious full-time employee.
We learn about Kulej’s on-screen story from the point of view of his adoptive father and coach of the Polish team – Feliks Stamm, played by Andrzej Chyra. It is his off-camera narrative that introduces us to the details of the first Olympic triumph and announces the problems that are to come. Unfortunately, this narrative support is false and overshadows the film’s story from the very beginning. Moreover, despite the initial suggestion, Stamm is not a character who would fight for Kuleja with his weaknesses and demons. Such a distribution of accents could be a flywheel for a story about a champion who falls several times on his way to the top only to get back up. Instead, the figure of the coach plays the role of the narrator of the dreamy ballad that this story becomes. There is her beloved – Helena (played by Michalina Olszańska), the mysterious colonel Sikorski (Tomasz Kot) and finally the best friends Aluś and Wituś (the duo Konrad Eleryk and Bartosz Gelner, who are the decoration of the film).
Entangled in this relational triangle, Kulej struggles, trying to reconcile the life of an athlete with being a husband and father and the nature of a carouser who constantly gets into trouble. And seemingly everything is correct, although Xawery Żuławski strongly romanticizes the true story, especially the relationship between Kulej and Helena. Much worse, the authors of the script in the finale were tempted to take the entire story into highly fictional areas straight from a B-movie.
However, the main problem of “Kuleja” is the lack of stakes. This is a story about a champion and since we know from the beginning that he will bring back a second gold medal from Mexico, the on-screen duels actually turn into a countdown to the final fight. And although they look good on camera, and Tomek Włosok impresses with his figure and movement around the ring, the course of the subsequent rounds does not arouse any special emotions. And the story lasting almost two and a half hours can be tedious.
It is impossible not to compare “Kuleja” with “Boxer” by Mitja Okorn, which premiered less than two weeks before Gdynia. A similar topic, similar realities up to a point and a similar tendency of the characters to get into trouble. However, “Boxer” is a player of a different scale, or, to use the Polish People’s Republic’s nomenclature, a “film-like product”, in which the dramatic clumsiness of the scriptwriters and director juggling clichés turns the story into a series of slapstick gags.
“Kulej”, with all its flaws, is still cinema, although at times it breathes on its sleeves like a competitor after a difficult duel. And the disappointment here is similar to that of this year’s loss of Iga Świątek at the Olympic Games in Paris. It was supposed to be a knockout, but instead we get something that in the above-mentioned “watchout” universe deserves at most a bronze medal.
5,5/10
“Kulej. Two sides of a coin”, dir. Xawery Żuławski, Poland 2024, distributor: Next Film, cinema premiere: October 11, 2024.