The Polish film ''Shivers'' is a tacit account of the making of a monster. It follows the process by which an adolescent boy named Tomasz (Tomasz Hudziec) is transformed from a quiet, shy student into a budding ideologue in the Poland of 1955.
As directed by Wojciech Marczewski, ''Shivers'' has a grimy, impoverished look in its early sections. Tomasz, who lives with his parents and younger brother in a small, homey apartment, is always dirty. Mr. Marczewski offers a sense of both the family's life together - their father is seen disciplining his sons and sending them off to bathe in kitchen washtubs - and of the disorder and despair Tomasz encounters in the classroom. His glum, cynical teacher gives the required lessons and also hints bitterly about those things his students are forbidden to read, study or think.
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