Seksmisja
Entry updated 10 February 2017. Tagged: Film.
Film (1984; vt Sex Mission). Zespóły Filmowe. Directed by Juliusz Machulski. Written by Machulski, Jolanta Hartwig, Paweł Hajny. Cast includes Olgierd Łukaszewicz, Bogusława Pawelec, Bozena Stryjkówna and Jerzy Stuhr. 121 minutes. Colour.
A solemn adventurer and a jolly wastrel volunteer for a Cryogenics experiment and wake up fifty years later (see Sleeper Awakes), after atomic war has (supposedly) devastated the surface and the survivors have retreated into the usual Underground enclaves. There are no more men, and the mildly totalitarian society is run by parthenogenetic women. The wastrel is keen on reintroducing traditional methods of procreation, while the Scientist is more interested in demonstrating the follies of the brave new world. In the Eastern European tradition of satirical sf, this Polish production uses Buck Rogers trappings to get a few cheap laughs out of women. The occasional sharp point is made, but Seksmisja is surprisingly unwitty and obvious; its anti-Feminism, latent throughout, emerges at the end when it is revealed that society's matriarch is a manipulative male transvestite. Seksmisja is mainly redeemed by its wry performances, particularly by Stuhr, Poland's favourite comedian, as the lecherous lazybones. [KN]
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