Polish humor (not to be confused with Polish jokes) is generally predicated on the fine line between pleasure and pain. Therefore it's fitting that the best movies of the Twin Cities Polish Film Fest -- held for a week at the St. Anthony Main Theatre, in conjunction with the Twin Cities Polish Festival -- juggle comedy and horror so fluidly that one could easily be mistaken for the other.

There's an old Polish proverb: "On a thief, the hat's on fire." By that standard, the kapelusz of Jan Lewan, subject of the documentary "The Man Who Would Be Polka King," is hotter than a well-cooked kielbasa. Defecting from Poland to Canada before settling in the land of opportunity (aka nordeast Pennsylvania), winsome bandleader Lewan built a "polka empire" out of slaphappy concerts, record albums, Polish knickknacks and, particularly, promissory notes sold Ponzi-style to his besotted senior-citizen fan base. Equally hilarious and painful, if not tragic, the documentary relates the would-be polka king's tale as if it were a chapter in the Old Testament. A little of it goes a long way, but that seems appropriate to the life of Lewan, a Polish pauper who set out to live the American dream and did -- pyramid scheme and all. (3 p.m. Sat., 7:15 p.m. Sun., 9 p.m. Tue.)

Set in 1952 and shot mostly in shimmering, noir-style black and white, "The Reverse" shifts from black comedy to suspense thriller in a heartbeat as it tells of Sabinka (beautifully played by Agata Buzek), a meek bookworm whose mom and grandma are desperate to get her hitched. Following a farcically bungled hookup, Mr. Right appears from out of nowhere to save Sabinka from a mugger, then proposes marriage -- but this ladykiller has a secret, to say the least. Quirky but never cute, "The Reverse" is a superbly detailed portrait of Stalinism in Poland; no wonder director Borys Lankosz cut his teeth on documentaries. (7 p.m. Fri., 9:30 p.m. Sat., 9 p.m. Wed.)

A sociocultural history of Cold War bunny rabbits? In just over half an hour? Believe it or not, that's "Rabbit a la Berlin," a deeply eccentric and utterly serious Polish-German co-production that was Oscar-nominated this year for best documentary short. A voiceover narrator adopts the point of view of rabbits living comfortably in the "death strip" on the east side of the Berlin Wall: "It was hard to work out what [the wall] had been erected for." The film itself burrows into the narrow passages that separate man from animal; seems the rabbits aren't the only ones whom the wall at once isolated and protected. For the animals, at least, when the wall came down, it was paradise lost. "Rabbit" screens on a double bill with another 40-minute documentary, "10 Years to Nashville," about Polish railway workers with a far-off dream. (5 p.m. Sat., 9:15 p.m. Mon., 7 p.m. Wed.)

Other films include:

"The Offsiders": In this comedy-drama, Warsaw down-and-outers train to compete in the Homeless World Cup. (7 p.m. Sat. & Mon., 9:15 p.m. Thu.)

"Oldies But Goodies": This collection of Polish animated films spans from 1958 to 1965. (1 p.m. Sat.-Sun., 5 p.m. Thu.)

"Operation Danube": A Polish-Czech co-production, director Jacek Glomb's historical drama concerns the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. (9:15 p.m. Fri., 5 p.m. Sun., 7 p.m. Thu.)

"Revisited": Director Krzysztof Zanussi updates the stories of characters from his previous films such as "Camouflage." (3 p.m. Sun., 7 p.m. Tue., 5 p.m. Wed.)