Wajda’s film is first and foremost a multilayered, Dickensian portrait of Poland at a specific time and place. The city of Lodz at the end of the 19th century was a European centre of (the) textile industry, controlled largely by members of one of the largest Jewish communities in the world. It is the early-capitalist land of unlimited opportunity feeding the greed of thousands of industrialists. Wajda focuses the story on three ambitious friends but the film is packed with (the) micro-observations of dozens of characters, perfectly capturing class society struggles in society, dark recesses of human character and the nature of the capitalist system. (Michał CHACI?SKI)