Waubonsee Community College

Alec the Pole, directed by Derek Jones, Richard Denton

eng

videorecording

Alec the Pole

electronic resource

911956109

directed by Derek Jones, Richard Denton

43

After the Second World War, a foreign soldier appears in a remote village in the Scottish Highlands. The only clue to his provenance is a Polish army badge on his ragged sleeve. The man, who calls himself 'Alec', is something of an anomaly in Grantown-on-Spey, where chins wag at the slightest deviation from normality. Almost fifty years on, and 'Alec the Pole' is normality personified – a pillar of the community, with a family and his own construction firm. He chops firewood, plants potatoes and has acquired a broad Scots accent. But newly-laid roots are easily dug up: after forty-six years of silence, Alec can keep his secrets no longer. Confessing that he is really a Ukrainian national, who survived the Red Army occupation before serving in the German army, then deserting to fight for Poland, he now sets out with his daughter Val on a journey of rediscovery

adult