The Road Home

In 1945, the Red Cross take Jerzy (Synowka) from Germany, where he has spent the war, back home to his mother and his paternal grandparents who occupy a large house somewhere near the Black Forest, then under the jurisdiction of the Red Army. The boy's father, a Polish cavalryman, disappeared in 1939 and a flame is kept burning at night to guide him home. Written and directed by the English-born Jerzy Kaszubowski, this Anglo-Polish production focuses tight on its historical moment, on a section of Poland sandwiched between its past (Germany) and its future (the Soviet Union). It's heavily symbolic, with an eagle and a grey horse making several appearances (and the director himself playing the father's ghost). At the end Jerzy and his stepfather Edward, a government placeman, wander through a forest after their truck has been ambushed by partisans. Jerzy has often imagined killing the now terrified usurper. The opportunity presents itself, but he declines to take it. Cue the grey horse.