Vabank (1981)

Warsaw, 1934. Famed/infamous – depending on which side of the law you find yourself – safe cracker and trumpet player Henryk Kwinto (Jan Machulski) is released from jail after a six year stint for a crime he actually didn’t commit. He was framed by his comrade Gustaw Kramer (Leonard Pietraszak), a man obviously lacking the code of ethics Kwinto prides himself on.

Kramer has hit it big in the last few years and now owns his very own bank, a position he gladly uses to con whomsoever has the misfortune of encountering him in business, while pretending to be an upstanding member of society. Kramer is pretty nervous about the whole situation with Kwinto, and tries to pay him off with a not terribly impressive sum.

The safe cracker at first still takes the money after nearly losing his composure (Kramer’s just that kind of a guy), having decided on a life inside the law now, so the revenge Kramer so fears isn’t really in the cards. Or it wouldn’t be, until Kwinto learns that Kramer has murdered a friend of his, a fellow musician/criminal, making it look like suicide to boot so that the man’s widow Marta (Ewa Szykulska) and her little daughter haven’t even gotten any life insurance money to survive on.

That’s a bit more than Kwinto is willing to accept from Kramer, so he recruits two young brothers only too happy to work with him (Krzysztof Kiersznowski and Jacek Chmielnik) and an old partner of his, Dunczyk (Witold Pyrkosz). Together, they are going to pay a little visit to Kramer’s supposedly absolutely secure bank vault, also setting in motion a larger plan of a certain delicious irony.

Quite a few details of Juliusz Machulski’s Vabank, beginning with its nature as a period piece, its use of music, character names and not ending with its general tone that mixes the comedic with the surprisingly earnest with elegance and style, have a marked resemblance to George Roy Hill’s The Sting, not in the way of a rip-off, but as a model to use or not use depending on the situation in thoughtful and effective ways, and certainly as a sibling in spirit.

It’s also a nice demonstration that the caper/heist movie genre is part of an international language that can’t be held back by piddling things like Iron Curtains. It’s not wonder, really, for the basic elements of these films – which Vabank all uses exceptionally well – are exactly the kind of thing any sane person will enjoy: clever people committing mostly non-violent crime in clever and movie plot complicated ways while whistling or trumpeting a tune; crime that’s generally committed on those people who deserve, nay, need to be taken down a peg (Kramer being a particularly egregious example of such a guy); plotting that is intricate and escapes showing that it is rather silly in realm-world terms via a tone of frothy lightness; main characters who walk through the places of the rich, the poor, and the in-between like trickster gods in a good mood; an idea of crime as a method to achieve justice that goes back to at least Robin Hood; and an admiration for skill but first and foremost cleverness and the ability to outwit a film’s antagonist. Package all this with the right pacing and the right actors, and you have the sort of thing movies were invented for.


In Vabank’s case, it’s not terribly difficult to think that the general disrespect it has for authority - given a more palatable taste for censors by turning this into a period piece and giving the villain that most capitalist of jobs, banker, I suppose – must have struck a special chord with Polish audiences, yet doing so in a way that’s not painful and serious but light and fun. The film certainly strikes a chord with me, not just because it includes all the expected elements of its sub-genre, and includes them so well, but because it also adds things of its own, small echoes of Polish history, and moments of melancholy seriousness whenever it treats Kwinto’s view of the world and his position as a man slowly aging out of his best years without having much to show for it that never get in the way of the lightness but enhance and deepen the films silliest moments by contrast, making the lightness feel more honest and earned.