Nobody in the city of Hamtramck, Michigan, where it was filmed, seemed to like this comic-tragic movie-except me and my journalist friend Walter Wasacz, who covered the shoot for the local newspaper in 1998. People found it disrespectful and vulgar; we found it magical and honest. Maybe it was seeing the ordinary shops and streets and the magnificent St. Florian church on the big screen, or maybe it was the authentic performances of Lena Olin, Clare Danes, and Gabriel Byrne. More than anything, for me, it is the complex musical score that captures a fleeting time and place so wonderfully. Each time I watch the film and the camera pans Hamtramck at night, I see the little house where my late mother lived, and think to myself, "Perhaps she was asleep, right there, that night, as the cameras rolled." Flawed, anachronistic, and could-have been-better yes, but I love every minute of it and she would have too.
Review of Polish Wedding
