Lead Children
Writers: Michal Jedryka and Jakub Korolczuk
Director: Maciej Pieprzyca
Starring: Joanna Kulig, Agata Kulesza, Kinga Preis, and Michal Zurawski
Publisher: Netflix
Genre: Non-Fiction, Historical
Rating: 4 Stars (8 Stars on IMDB)
Reviewed by Astilbe

A young doctor uncovers lead poisoning in children near a steelworks. Despite state opposition, she strives to treat the sick kids.

Success is never guaranteed.

I appreciated how much time was spent exploring the effects of lead poisoning and why so many people in the 1970s were unaware of how it can disable and even kill children. This wasn’t something I knew much about before watching this series, but knowing the stakes the inhabitants of Silesia were facing was critical in order to understand why Dr. Wadowska-Król’s campaign was of utmost importance. Some of the best scenes in my opinion were the ones showing children playing in the dirt, going swimming, eating vegetables from their mother’s gardens, or doing other innocent things that took on a much darker meaning once the audience understood how polluted this community was and the many ways lead can enter the human body.

There were times when I found this mini-series to be a little uneven in its pacing and repetitive, especially when it came to Dr. Wadowska-Król’s conflicts with various Communist party members about how much information the general public should have about how lead poisoning was affecting the children of Silesia. These scenes were powerful the first few times but began to lose their effectiveness a little for this viewer by the time I reached the last two episodes and had seen them play out multiple times.

Understanding the culture of this time and place was necessary in order for the later episodes to make the most sense. Silesia was a complex town that relied on everyone following orders and not asking questions about what they were instructed to do. Normally, of course, this can be a good thing, but there are cases when obedience can have tragic unintended consequences when those in power may not have the best interests of the common person at heart. The scenes that dug into the discrepancies between what the leaders said and what they actually did behind closed doors were among the most powerful ones for me, and they were a big part of what kept me going despite my gentle critique of certain scenes.

Lead Children was an illuminating look at a chapter of history I’d never heard of before.