ANYONE WATCHING Leave No Traces, the political thriller that is Poland’s official entry for Best International Feature Film at the coming Oscars, is likely to feel some sympathy for the Law and Justice Party’s efforts since 2015 to purge Communist-era judges from the country’s courts, which is the reason for the Polish government’s continuing dispute with the European Union.
In 2017, 15 out of about 60 judges on the Supreme Court had served during the last communist Supreme Court term (1986-1990), while the judge who headed the Military Chamber of the Supreme Court from 1990 to 2016 had been a Communist military judge in the 1970s and 80s.
Leave No Traces is Poland’s equivalent of Costa-Gavras’s 1969 classic Z, although the victim is an ordinary citizen rather than a politician…
You're reading a preview of
The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, December 2021