Produced during the bicentennial of the birth of the great Polish romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855), Pan Tadeusz is Wajda’s stunning adaptation of Mickiewicz’s national epic poem. The narrative is set in the early part of the nineteenth century in a Polish-speaking region of Lithuania and revolves around a feud between two aristocratic Polish families. The film abounds with breathtakingly beautiful landscapes, men on horseback, peasants at work, golden wheat fields, and gleaming ears of silvery rye. The lushness of the countryside provides a dynamic backdrop to both a love story (the young couple hails from the two opposing sides of the feud) and the larger historical forces at work at a time when Poles invested their hopes for regaining nationhood in Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. Pan Tadeusz has proven to be one of Wajda’s most successful and beloved films, with Polish attendance besting the box-office records set there by both Titanic and Star Wars.