In 1961, Stanislaw Rozewicz created the novella film "Birth Certificate" in cooperation with his brother, Taduesz Rozewicz as screenwriter. Such brother tandems are rare in the history of film but aside from family ties, Stanislaw (born in 1924) and Taduesz (born in 1921) were mutually bound by their love for the cinema. They were born and grew up in Radomsk, a small town which had "its madmen and its saints" and most importanly, the "Kinema" cinema, as Stanislaw recalls: for him cinema is "heaven, the whole world, enchantment". Tadeusz says he considers cinema both a charming market stall and a mysterious temple. "All this savage land has always attracted and fascinated me," he says. "I am devoured by cinema and I devour cinema; I'm a cinema eater." But Taduesz Rozewicz, an eminent writer, admits this unique form of cooperation was a problem to him: "It is the presence of the other person not only in the process of writing, but at its very core, which is inserperable for me from absolute solitude." Some scenes the brothers wrote together; others were created by the writer himself, following discussions with the director. But from the perspective of time, it is "Birth Certificate", rather than "Echo" or "The Wicked Gate", that Taduesz describes as his most intimate film. This is understandable. The tradgey from September 1939 in Poland was for the Rozewicz brothers their personal "birth certificate". When working on the film, the director said "This time it is all about shaking off, getting rid of the psychological burden which the war was for all of us. ... Cooperation with my brother was in this case easier, as we share many war memories. We wanted to show to adult viewers a picture of war as seen by a child. ... In reality, it is the adults who created the real world of massacres. Children beheld the horrors coming back to life, exhumed from underneath the ground, overwhelming the earth."
The principle of composition of "Birth Certificate" is not obvious. When watching a novella film, we tend to think in terms of traditional theatre. We expect that a miniature story will finish with a sharp point; the three film novellas in Rozewicz's work lack this feature. We do not know what will be happen to the boy making his alone through the forest towards the end of "On the Road". We do not know whether in "Letter from the Camp", the help offered by the small heroes to a Soviet prisoner will rescue him from the unknown fate of his compatriots. The fate of the Jewish girl from "Drop of Blood" is also unclear. Will she keep her new impersonation as "Marysia Malinowska"? Or will the Nazis make her into a representative of the "Nordic race"? Those questions were asked by the director for a reason. He preceived war as chaos and perdition, and not as linear history that could be reflected in a plot. Although "Birth Certificate" is saturated with moral content, it does not aim to be a morality play. But with the immense pressure of reality, no varient of fate should be excluded. This approached can be compared wth Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Blind Chance" 25 years later, which pictured dramatic choices of a different era.
The film novella "On the Road" has a very sparing plot, but it drew special attention of the reviewers. The ominating overtone of the war films created by the Polish Film School at that time should be kept in mind. Mainly owing to Wajda, those films dealt with romantic heritage. They were permeated with pathos, bitterness, and irony. Rozewicz is an extraordinary artist. When narrating a story about a boy lost in a war zone, carrying some documents from the regiment office as if they were a treasure, the narrator in "On the Road" discovers rough prose where one should find poetry. And suddenly, the irrational touches this rather tame world. The boy, who until that moment resembled a Polish version of the Good Soldier Schweik, sets off, like Don Quixote, for his first and last battle. A critic described it as "an absurd gesture and someone else could surely use it to criticise the Polish style of dying. ... But the Rozewicz brothers do no accuse: they only compose an elegy for the picturesque peasant-soldier, probably the most important veteran of the Polish war of 1939-1945." "Birth Certificate" is not a lofty statement about national imponderabilia. The film reveals a plebeian perspective which Aleksander Jackieqicz once contrasted with those "lyrical lamentations" inherent in the Kordian tradition. However, a historical overview of Rozewicz's work shows that the distinctive style does not signify a fundamental difference in illustrating the Polish September. Just as the memorable scene from Wajda's "Lotna" was in fact an expression of desperation and distress, the same emotions permeate the final scene of "Birth Certificate". These are not ideological concepts, though once described as such and fervently debated, but rather psychological creations. In this specific case, observes Witold Zalewski, it is not about manifesting knightly pride, but about a gesture of a simple man who does not agree to be enslaved.
The novella "Drop of Blood" is, with Aleksander Ford's "Border Street", one of the first narrations of the fate of the Polish Jews during the Nazi occupation. The story about a girl literally looking for her place on earth has a dramatic dimension. Especially in the age of today's journalistic disputes, often manipulative, lacking in empathy and imbued with bad will, Rozewicz's story from the past shocks with its authenticity. The small herione of the story is the only one who survives a German raid on her family home. Physical survial does not, however, mean a return to normality. Her frightened departure from the rubbish dump that was her hideout lead her to a ruined apartment. Her walk around it is painful because still fresh signs of life are mixed with evidence of annihilation. Help is needed, but Mirka does not know anyone in the outside world. Her subsequent attempts express the state of the fugitive's spirits - from hope and faith, moving to doubt, a sense of oppression, and thickening fear, and finally to despair.
At the same time, the Jewish girl's search for refuge resembles the state of Polish society. The appearance of Mirka results in confusion, and later, trouble. This was already signalled by Rozewicz in an exceptional scene from "Letter from the Camp" in which the boy's neighbour, seeing a fugitive Russian soldier, retreats immediately, admitting that "Now, people worry only about themselves." Such embarassing excuses mask fear. During the occupation, no one feels safe. Neither social status not the aegis of a charity organisation protects against repression. We see the potential guardians of Mirka passing her back and forth among themselves. These are friendly hands but they cannot offer strong support. The story takes place on that thin line between solidarity and heroism. Solidarity arises spontaneously, but only some are capable of heroism. Help for the girl does not always result from compassion; sometimes it is based on past relations and personal ties (a neighbour of the doctor takes in the fugitive for a few days because of past friendship). Rozewicz portrays all of this in a subtle way; even the smallest gesture has significance. Take, for example, the conversation with a stranger on the train: short, as if jotted down on the margin, but so full of tension. And earlier, a peculiar examination of Polishness: the "Holy Father" prayer forced on Mirka by the village boys to check that she is not a Jew. Would not rising to the challenge mean a death sentance?
Viewed after many years, "Birth Certificate" discloses yet another quality that is not present in the works of the Polish School, but is prominent in later B-class war films. This is the picture of everyday life during the war and occupation outlined in the three novellas. It harmonises with the logic of speaking about "life after life". Small heroes of Rozewicz suddenly enter the reality of war, with no experience or scale with which to compare it. For them, the present is a natural extension of and at the same time a complete negation of the past. Consider the sleey small-town marketplace, through which armoured columns will shortly pass. Or meet the German motorcyclists, who look like aliens from outer space - a picture taken from an autopsy because this is how Stanislaw and Taduesz perceived the first Germans they ever met. Note the blurred silhouettes of people against a white wall who are being shot - at first they are shocking, but soon they will probably become a part of the grim landscape. In the city centre stands a prisoner camp on a sodden bog ("People perish likes flies; the bodies are transported during the night"); in the street the childern are running after a coal wagon to collect some precious pieces of fuel. There's a bustle around some food (a boy reproaches his younger brother's actions by singing: "The warrant officer's son is begging in front of the church? I'm going to tell mother!"); and the kitchen, which one evening becomes the proscenium of a real drama. And there are the symbols: a bar of chocolate forced upon a boy by a Wehrmacht soldier ("On the Road"); a pair of shoes belonging to Zbyszek's father which the boy spontaneously gives to a Russian fugitive; a priceless slice of bread, ground under the heel of a policeman in the guter ("Letters from the Camp"). As the director put it: "In every film, I communicate my own vision of the world and of the people. Only then the style follows, the defined way of experiencing things." In Birth Certificate, he adds, his approach was driven by the subject: "I attempted to create not only the texture of the document but also to add some poetic element. I know it is risky but as for the merger of documentation and poety, often hidden very deep, if only it manages to make its way onto the screen, it results in what can referred to as 'art'."
After 1945, there were numerous films created in Europe that dealt with war and children, including "Somewhere in Europe" ("Valahol Europaban", 1947 by Geza Radvanyi), "Shoeshine" ("Sciescia", 1946 by Vittorio de Sica), and "Childhood of Ivan" ("Iwanowo dietstwo" by Andriej Tarkowski). Yet there were fewer than one would expect. Pursuing a subject so imbued with sentimentalism requires stylistic disipline and a special ability to manage child actors. The author of "Birth Certificate" mastered both - and it was not by chance. Stanislaw Rozewicz was always the beneficent spirit of the film milieu; he could unite people around a common goal. He emanated peace and sensitivity, which flowed to his co-workers and pupils. A film, being a group work, necessitates some form of empathy - tuning in with others.
In a biographical documentary about Stanislaw Rozewicz entitled "Walking, Meeting" (1999 by Antoni Krauze), there is a beautiful scene when the director, after a few decades, meets Beata Barszczewska, who plays Mireczka in the novella "Drops of Blood". The woman falls into the arms of the elderly man. They are both moved. He wonders how many years have passed. She answers: "A few years. Not too many." And Rozewicz, with his characteristic smile says: "It is true. We spent this entire time together."
远超预期，这又是一位宝藏新人导演啊。非线性叙事+黑色幽默，悬念环环相扣，剧情层层反转，在国产悬疑片里属于上乘之作了。范伟的表演很稳，更令人惊喜的是窦骁，这应该是他的翻身之作了吧。
密闭空间小格局，玩层层包裹逐步揭开的叙事结构，讲了一套不算复杂的人物关系。越往后越显得闹腾不悬疑，反转设计的戏剧感明显，窦骁一角尤其生硬戛然而终。
和段老师一起看的第五部电影，在影院看的第二部，两个憨憨为自己的愚蠢付出了巨额的代价，以后再也不在影城里买吃的了！
既然所有人都当你不是普通人，那你就当一个不普通的人
3.5 渐入佳境的一部，前面太多的造作，后面把问题一抛出来就好看舒服的多了。（什么时候原声版港台片能和原声版进口片一样在大陆影院普及，国配太毁体验了。
整体情节、节奏、叙事还是挺不错的，比较话剧剧本杀的感觉，个别小细节有点小瑕疵，但反复重述带来新的反转，加重的呼吸节奏增加紧张气氛，整体剧情大于喜剧，部分细节以为自己猜到了，结果和自己想的不一样还蛮加分的。范伟表现顶得起大梁，窦骁比想象中出彩还不错。看的时候莫名想到《局外人》，虽然不一样，但莫名还是感叹普通人荒诞的悲剧。
粵語版，七分。兩位飾演蘇樺偉的演員表現都不錯，或者可以競逐金像獎新人獎。
7/10。剧本很多砂石，（例如阿伟细佬和方sir细妹的工具人角色）但三位主角表演加分，少年版阿伟比青年版更动人，虽然jimmy食两家茶礼，但还是想喊一句“香港，加油啊！”（戴定头盔讲埋中国加油！武汉加油！广州加油！…先）
感动固然是有的，这当中看到了当妈的各种牺牲奉献精神，而爸爸永远缺席…弟弟的存在更让人心疼
世界上最伟大的就是母爱，没有神奇妈妈，就不会有神奇小子
居然是个意外惊喜，看见范伟就能乐，值得了。
和同期的《扬名立万》很像，都是把简单的故事换个讲法，真相其实很简单，重点是叙事手法。
平庸的体育励志电影，演员们的演技固然好，却没有优秀的人物角色，做了无用功的情感高潮是一大败笔。两星半。
前半段在密闭空间内“罗生门”式的多视角叙事与反转还是很不错的，结构、故事与节奏都是搭的。只可惜当外来两人闯入后便显得平庸了，后续故事非常无力，风格与主题突变产生违和感，完全是虎头蛇尾……不过作为自编自导的新人作，这当然是合格可看的。
这是真·剧本杀电影啊，代入感可太强了。剧情反转不够惊艳，感受因为编剧不够经验？编不下去了，就炸煤气罐同归于尽？范伟老师一如既往地稳，窦骁的帅忽然就get了，至于张颂文……还是期待您其他戏的表现吧。
这么多好评刷的人好尴尬吧……我已经很久没有在电影院有度日如年的感觉了
开始还觉得好玩，看到一半就不能忍了。这为反转而反转的剧情是把观众当傻子么？
很棒的片子，很感人。只是配音太差了，如果配音更好点可以满分
和段老师一起看的第五部电影，在影院看的第二部，两个憨憨为自己的愚蠢付出了巨额的代价，以后再也不在影城里买吃的了！
勉强还成。但主创对网状叙事貌似有什么误会，只是靠不断切换视角、不断回溯、不断提供新信息是远远不够的。结构的组接一定要有“意料之外、情理之中”的惊喜感才可以。
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