Róża invites Tadeusz to stay at her farm to protect her against marauders and the brutal rapes she had previously experienced during the Soviet East Prussian Offensive and in the lawless atmosphere of postwar Masuria.

From this partnership of purpose, slowly respect and love arises - a "frowned-upon relationship" attracting the "unwelcome attention of the new Polish nationalists as well as the notorious Soviet NKVD".

What in other hands might have played as costume melodrama focused on the victimized title character here takes the perspective of the loner hero, as Smarzowski gives the pic the hallmarks of a latter-day Western.

"[3] Giuseppe Sedia in a review for the Krakow Post wrote: "From a moral point of view Róża is a Western crammed with violence but filmed without complacency.

Smarzowski referred to himself as the “third Cohen brother” and there may be a kernel of truth in this, at least in his commitment to injecting a dose of realism into movie genres that have never been fully developed in Polish cinema".