The award-winning Krzysztof Zanussi, one of the great Polish filmmakers, made his feature debut with this psychologically rich, remarkably mature chamber drama about career vocation (Zanussi studied physics), friendship, and life philosophy.
Krzysztof Zanussi brings his sharpened poetic sensibility to the postwar generation of Poles struggling to bring purpose to their lives under Communism. The promises and struggles of love and physics set this kinetic and impressionistic film on a tailspin. Winner of Locarno’s Golden Leopard.
Through its hero’s eyes—and the travails of a righteous and honest man—we see, at the end of the 1970s, what’s become of the Communist dream. One of Zanussi’s most acclaimed films and the winner of the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
The final film—which swept the Polish Film Awards—in our Krzysztof Zanussi retrospective brings us to the post-Communist era of Poland today. An eloquent drama about the quest for spiritual harmony while facing death, it asks vital questions about how to accept the world as it changes around you.
In the cinema of Krzysztof Zanussi, livingly embodied & taut with the internal debates of a transforming society, the clash of Polish generations reaches its pinnacle in this richly erudite drama of debate. His usual university-educated protagonists are under his microscope—a microcosm of a nation.
