The rise of the industrial era and the capitalist boom it engendered are at the core of Wajda’s epic adaptation of the novel by 1924 Nobel Prize winner W. S. Reymont. The film charts the rise and fall of three ambitious tycoons: Karol, a Polish nobleman, Maks, a German hoping to improve on the fate of his father, and Moryc, a businessman tolerated only for his valuable connections.
