We look at Radoslaw Piwowarski's Beatles-themed film, which won the Golden Shell at the 1985 San Sebastián International Film Festival. It's the story of teenagers in 1964 communist Poland trying to forge an identity through their love of the Beatles. We talk about cinema behind the Iron Curtain (the Polish People's Republic was under communist rule both in the story and when the film was released) and what that means for freedom of expression, both for the filmmakers and the characters. Is the Beatles' music, which we hear in the film, treated with a special reverence given how it was contraband to the characters? And as the boys are forced to have haircuts we talk about the cultural significance of the Beatles' hair and what that meant in a regime where signifiers of rebellion were more dangerous than in the West.Watch the film on YouTube with English subtitles: https://youtu.be/ymPnya34a4gThe poster with the four shaved heads we mention is the one we've used for this episode's image (albeit with our logo photoshopped in)Bruce Channel's Hey Baby from 1959, which briefly popularised the harmonica, a craze which helped with the Beatles' early popularity: https://youtu.be/ik9dxkKriV0Some more information on El Cóndor Pasa, the folk song popularised by Simon & Garfunkel but which has versions in lots of countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_C%C3%B3ndor_Pasa_(song)Meet the Beatles Films PodcastThe Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspodBluesky https://bsky.app/profile/beatlesfilmspod.bsky.socialYouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcastThreads https://www.threads.net/@beatlesfilmspodX https://x.com/beatlesfilmpodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.