The ghosts of communism come back to haunt not only the generation that resisted it but their children as well in Rafael Lewandowski’s ambiguous thriller The Mole. Set in a wintry Poland of snowbound city streets and whitewashed landscapes where something is always buried, The Mole follows Zygmunt and Pawel, a convivial father and son, as they travel across Europe dealing in second hand clothes. Pawel is fiercely proud of his father, a former mineworker’s union leader and hero of the Solidarity movement, but when the papers break a story accusing Zygmunt of being a communist informer, Zygmunt’s response calls in question everything his son has ever known.
Marian Dziedziel is outstanding as Zygmunt, a fragile and deeply-scarred old man alternately revered and despised as successive revelations emerge, while Borys Szyc’s Pawel grows from boyish naivety to a man struggling under the weight of his father’s – and his country’s – past. As Pawel slowly uncovers the truth of what happened thirty years before, he finds himself caught in a web of conflicting loyalties, and Lewandowski expertly ratchets up the tension in a slow-burning thriller that builds to a nerve-jangling climax. - Alistair Daniel, Jameson Dublin International Film Festival