Little Rose

Poland’s Jewish population was decimated by the Holocaust, but anti-Semitism remained a disturbingly common aspect of the country’s nationalist rhetoric well into the postwar Communist era. Little Rose, a taut espionage thriller, opens in 1967 as news of the Six Day War comes with the message that Israel’s gains represent a grave threat to Poland. In this paranoid atmosphere, Roman Rozek trails suspected dissidents for the secret police. One of his targets is Adam Warczewski, a distinguished Warsaw intellectual known for his humanist views and Western contacts—and thus targeted by the authorities as a likely traitor to the Party. Hoping to dig up evidence of the professor’s Zionism, Rozek enlists the help of his bombshell girlfriend Kamila (Magdalena Boczarska in an award-winning performance). She proves a valuable source, trading on her intimacy with Warczewski, first as a student and then as a lover, to issue reports under the code name Little Rose. But as their affair blooms into something genuine and edifying, Kamila must reckon with her allegiances. Fans of The Lives of Others and Black Book will enjoy Jan Kidawa-Blonski’s dramatic depiction of totalitarianism’s contamination of private life. Little Rose delivers all the suspense of a spy movie, but it also assuredly zeroes in on the repressive political environment in Poland that exploded in the riots of March 1968. Note: Contains material not suitable for children