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Struggle: The Life And Lost Art Of Szukalski (2018)Struggle: The Life And Lost Art Of Szukalski (2018)

Struggle: The Life And Lost Art Of Szukalski (2018)

Documentary

8.8

movie

Poland, United States of America
English, Polish
Mind-blowing
2018
Irek Dobrowolski, Ireneusz Dobrowolski
Charles Schneider, Gabriel Bartalos, George DiCaprio
104 min

Synopsis

rotten tomatoes
imdb
wikipedia
The remarkable life story of the pre-war Polish artist Stanislav Szukalski, documented by the American friends he made late in life.

Our Take

8.8
The Staff

This is an amazing documentary but be warned, the main character has some weird characteristics.

By coincidence, an art collector stumbles upon an undiscovered collection of sculptures and paintings that can only be described as the work of a genius. There was almost no reference to the artist, but upon research the collector finds that they are by a man called Stanislav Szukalski. He traces him down and finally locates him living anonymously in a California suburb. 

The documentary, Struggle: The Life And Lost Art Of Szukalski, is a collection of tapes from numerous interviews in the 1980s between the collector and Szukalski. He was helped by George DiCaprio, who would later produce this movie with his son Leonardo (!). 

In these interviews it becomes clear that Szukalski is pure genius. The funny thing is that he seemed to be well aware of this fact himself. 

Remember the weird characteristics I mentioned in that first sentence? Here we go. Szukalski’s past is full of a lot of antisemitism, sexism and bigotry. 

The question that lingers is how exactly can this forgotten-genius story be reshaped by the discovery of his twisted opinions. Can the artist be separated from the art? It’s a personal matter for the people who found Szukalski and later made this movie. It might never get as personal for you, but this movie will sure try to provoke an answer.

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