‘Lead Children’ Holds an Extra Layer of Interest for Conservative Viewers

This week I decided to check out a show currently streaming on Netflix called Lead Children. Having watched it, I was struck by what an unusual message it had, not just about lead contamination but about communism. I think it’s one that many American conservatives would appreciate.

The show is a Polish import based on a true story that happened in communist Poland back in 1974. The set up is pretty simple. There’s an upcoming visit from comrade Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The visit is seen as very important and symbolic by the apparatchiks working for what was then known as the Polish United Workers’ Party, the communist party that ran Poland.

As part of this VIP visit, the locals plan to show Brezhnev their state-of-the-art metal smelting plant. Meanwhile, a woman doctor named Jolanta moves into the area and soon discovers there are dozens of sick children being treated for anemia. There are so many sick children that the local pediatric ward is turning them away. The rest of the show is about her efforts to uncover what is really going on.

Directed by Maciej Pieprzyca, “Lead Children” is set in Communist-era Poland in the 1970s, centered around the small district of Szopienice, in the city of Katowice; it’s a modest, working-class community whose major source of industry is the nearby smelting plant (which looms large over the mud-covered streets, chimneys billowing black smoke in terrifying CG rivulets). Children play in the mud, drink from the water, swim in the nearby pools—all while disquieting particulate matter floats around the characters we see. Children start falling ill, sick with what appears to be anemia; babies begin to arrive stillborn. Enter Jolanta Wadowska-Król (Joanna Kulig, a stalwart player in Pawel Pawlikowski’s films), a headstrong young medic whose husband (Sebastian Pawlak) works at the nearby hospital. Concerned about the illness spreading among their children, Jola begins to investigate and quickly zeroes in on the metalworks as the source of their misery…

That critical conflict sits at the center of the miniseries, as Jola’s inconvenient questions begin to ruffle the feathers of both the local politburo (including local governor Zdzisław Grudzień (Zbigniew Zamachowski), a petty tyrant concerned with this controversy affecting his influence) and her own neighbors, whose own livelihood and careers depend on employment at the plant. It even begins to tear her family apart, as both she and her husband face friction in their careers and their relationship starts to fracture.

It’s not secret (given the title of the show alone) that the children are being poisoned, possibly from lead released by the giant smokestacks not far from where they live. This party of the story is what RogerEbert.com calls a “contamination drama.” We’ve seen this before with Chernobyl and other shows. What’s different about this one is how directly the communist state becomes the villain. 

Early on, maybe in the first or 2nd episode, Jolanta sneaks into a hospital to examine some of the sick kids. But a doctor gets her license plate and relays the information to the local party fixer. The next day she is thrown in jail for a hit-and-run. Of course, there is no hit-and-run, that’s just an excuse to threaten her. Either she backs off her personal investigation into the sick kids, or the party will make sure she goes to prison for something they made up. And it’s clear they can do it. There is no one to stop them.

Jolanta later learns that she’s also been hampered by one of the nurses in her clinic who was pressured by her husband to write a denunciation of Jolanta and submit it to the secret police. These denunciations play a kind of running joke in the show as the same nurse agrees to continue writing them at Jolanta’s behest. 

In a later episode, she is arrested again and winds up in a basement where a man asks her, “Do you confess your crimes?” She replies, “What am I accused of doing?” The man seems a bit put out at having to explain it to her before she confesses. When she doesn’t immediately agree, another member of the team threatens to place the blame on her teenage daughter instead, possibly sending her to prison for life.

There’s nothing remotely like justice happening in these places, it’s just an application of raw power. You do what the party wants or you get denounced and punished. The show makes it clear that everyone, including the secret police running the operation against Jolanta, are all subject to the same outcome the moment they challenge their superiors.

Apart from the setting, the show is well-produced with some solid acting and a unique, if very downbeat, look. It’s not as good as Chernobyl, which remains one of the best TV shows ever made, but it’s good despite the pacing being a bit slow. For the glimpse of life under communism alone, it’s worth watching.

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