In this dramatic and wickedly subversive portrayal of the tense conflict between students and teachers at a country summer school for linguistics, Krzysztof Zanussi offers a subtle but fierce critique of Communist Party politics and the precariousness of success in a socialist society.

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.