SYNOPSIS
Upon finding a book that relates his grandfather's story, an officer ventures through Spain meeting a wide array of characters, most of whom have a story of their own to tell.
CAST & CREW
Wojciech Has
Director
Script
Tadeusz Kwiatkowski (based on the novel by Jan Potocki)
Director of Photography
Mieczyslaw Jahoda
Production designer
Tadeusz Myszorek, Jerzy Skarzynski
Music by
Krzysztof Penderecki
Sound
Bohdan Bienkowski
Edit
Krystyna Komosinska
Cast
Zbigniew Cybulski, Iga Cembrzynska, Elzbieta Czyzewska
Production company(ies)
Kamera Film Unit
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).
