Posted: Tue., Feb. 18, 2003, 5:19pm PT

Berlin

Edi

(Poland)

By David Stratton

An Opus Film production. (International sales: Opus Film, Lodz.) Produced by Piotr Dzieciol. Directed by Piotr Trzaskalski. Screenplay, Wojciech Lepianka, Trzaskalski.

Edi - Henryk Golebiewski Juri - Jacek Braciak Older Brother - Jacek Lenartowicz Younger Brother - Grzegorz Stelmaszewski The Princess - Alexsandra Kisio Krystyna - Malgorzata Flegel Andrzej - Tomasz Jarosz

This first feature from Piotr Trzaskalski, who studied at Poland's Lodz Film School and won a scholarship to the Northern School of Television at Leeds U. in Britain before embarking on a career making videoclips and documentary films, is a surprisingly sentimental story about a loser who misses out on a brief chance of happiness. The winner at Poland's National Film Awards last year, and the country's Oscar contender, "Edi" is confidently made and moderately likable, but may be too mawkish for many tastes. Internationally, ancillary reps the best chance for exposure.

The eponymous Edi, played with stoic grace by Henryk Golebiewski, ekes out a meager living as a homeless scrap-dealer. Accompanied by his slightly half-witted buddy, Juri (Jacek Braciak), Edi trudges around the city, pushing a cart filled with odds and ends, and just about surviving.

His prospects improve when he meets a couple of brothers (Jacek Lenartowicz, Grzegorz Stelmaszewski), tough guys who work in the liquor business. They have a beautiful sister (Alexsandra Kisio), a 17-year-old they adore and call "The Princess," and who they have protected since the death of their parents; but now the girl is growing up much too fast for their liking, and they want to clip her wings. Edi is hired as the girl's bodyguard mainly because the brothers figure he's so ugly she won't be interested in him.

Unknown to them, however, the Princess is enjoying a secret affair, and Edi meets her lover. She soon becomes pregnant, and to save the child's father from the furious wrath of her brothers, the girl names Edi as the dad, with unexpected results. Forced by the brothers to take the baby away, Edi begins a new life as a father, which fills him with delight. However, events conspire to see his happiness cruelly short-lived.

Golebiewski's touching performance as the long-suffering protagonist is the film's principal strength, but the tyro director (who acknowledges the influence of auteurs like Robert Bresson and Andrei Tarkovsky) and his cameraman, Krzysztof Ptak, create an atmospheric, if rather bleak, setting for this sad, but soft-centered, little story.

Camera (color), Krzysztof Ptak; editor, Cezary Kowalczuk; music, Wojciech Lemanski; production designer, Wojciech Zogala; costume designer, Monika Ugrewicz; assistant directors, Wojciech Lepianka, Marcin Adamczewski. Reviewed on videocassette, Leura, Australia, Dec. 7, 2002. (In Berlin film fest, Forum.) Running time: 100 MIN.