SYNOPSIS
An actress travels from Warsaw to Paris and during the trip reflects on the last few years of her life. It goes back to the German occupation and her hiding of a fellow actor who has supposedly killed a collaborator. He is weak and a bit cowardly, but suffers most from not having any audience for his vanity, ego and supposed bravery. After the war he leaves her but finds out that he has been accused of cowardice. He finally commits suicide and she clears herself of a collaboration charge and eventually becomes a popular actress.
CAST & CREW
Wojciech Has
Director
Script
Kazimierz Brandys
Director of Photography
Stefan Matyjaszkiewicz
Music by
Lucjan Kaszycki
Edit
Zofia Dwornik
Cast
Barbara Krafftówna, Zbigniew Cybulski, Artur Mlodnicki.
Production company(ies)
WFF Wroclaw ZRF Kamera
Wojciech Has
During the wartime German occupation of Poland, Wojciech Has has studied at the Kraków Business and Commerce College and later clandestine underground classes at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts - until it was disbanded in 1943. When the war ended, he went on to study at the reconstituted Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. In 1946, Has completed a one-year course in film and began producing educational and documentary films at the Warsaw Documentary Film Studio, and in the 1950s moved on to work at Poland's premier filmmaking academy, the National Film Studio, in Łódź. Has made his debut with Harmony (1948), a medium-length feature, and began making full-length feature films in 1957. In 1974, he was appointed as professor in the Directing Department at the National Film School in Łódź. Throughout his long and prolific career, he directed such notable films as The Saragossa Manuscript, The Doll and The Hourglass Sanatorium. Has also created a number of intimate psychological dramas during his career, such as Farewells and How to Be Loved, focusing on damaged individuals who have difficulty settling into life. In his work, he was fascinated by outsiders and people incapable of finding their place in reality.
Filmography
Brzozowa Street (1947, doc.), Harmonia (1948, short), Parowóz P7-47 (1949, doc.), Jeden dzien w Polsce (1949, short), Pierwszy plon (1950, doc.), My City (1950, doc.), Scentralizowana kontrola przebiegu produkcji (1951, doc.), Mechanizacja robót ziemnych (1951, doc.), Zielarze z Kamiennej Doliny (1952, doc.), Karmik Jankowy (1952, doc.), Harcerze na zlocie (1952, doc.), Nasz zespól (1955, doc.), The Noose (1958), Farewells (1958), One Room Tenants (1960), Rozstanie (1961), Złoto (1962), How to Be Loved (1963), The Saragossa Manuscript (1965), Szyfry (1966), Walc minutowy (1967, short), Lalka (1968), The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973), An Uneventful Story (1983), Pismak (1985), Osobisty pamiętnik grzesznika przez niego samego spisany (1986), The Tribulations of Balthazar Kober (1988).
