EDI

If you chanced to meet Edi on the street you probably wouldn't look twice at him. But EDI is a film that may never, ever leave your memory, and it's a moving feature debut from filmmaker Piotr Trzaskalski. A ragpicker with a face creased by many years of liquor, ill luck and hard living, taciturn Edi dwells uncomplainingly in a ruined building with his best friend Jurek. Together they spends their days culling the city's refuse for metal to sell to a scrap dealer, and their nights drinking away the proceeds in pubs. Then Edi gets hired by a pair of notorious brothers, homicidal bootlegger thugs, to tutor their teenage sister in her all-important school exams. Edi is ugly, meek and can read and write; that's all the violent duo know or care about him. But one of the things Edi reads is a discarded copy of “Romeo and Juliet.” And when he notices the sheltered Princess carrying on a secret love affair with a Gypsy smuggler, the junkman grasps his destiny and the horrendous pain he must endure as a result of his selflessness. Profoundly heartbreaking without being the least bit mawkish or obvious, this tale of a misfit hero's Christ-like sacrifice proves that there could be indeed angels among us, and that the virtuous qualities of humility, stoicism and mercy can be found as much in the gutters as in cathedrals. EDI is Poland's 2002 submission to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for Best Foreign Film. (In Polish with English subtitles)