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Sztuka kochania: Historia Michaliny Wisłockiej (The Art of Loving: The Story of Michalina Wisłocka). dir. Maria Sadowska, 2017. Warsaw: Agora SA, TVN SA, Orange SA, Watchout Studio, Plast Service Pack. 117 min. zł 29.99.
Making a biopic is never easy and rarely successful because screenwriter and director wrangle with one of two challenges: either slickly packaging a marginalized historic figure in order to pique viewers’ interest or satisfying the fans of a famous subject by covering as many of their “iconic” memories as possible. The makers of The Art of Loving: The Story of Michalina Wisłocka have chosen a fabulous subject for a biopic—a pioneering Polish doctor-activist who campaigned for women's reproductive rights and sexual pleasure in the People's Republic of Poland (PRL). Director Maria Sadowska and screenwriter Krzysztof Rak seem undecided, however, about what would most interest viewers in the feisty female doctor. Their branding anxiety is evident in the double-barreled title. Should this movie be about Wisłocka's controversial blockbuster, The Art of Loving, finally permitted publication in 1978, bought by seven million readers, and now being reissued a thirteenth time after forty years in print? Or should this film feature the “story” of the book's author, drawing on Wisłocka's 2014 biography by Violetta Ozminkowski, provocatively titled A Sinner's Art of Love?
Sadowska and Rak decide by not deciding and hobble what might otherwise be a...