"The Saragossa Manuscript" („Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie”), dir. Wojciech Jerzy Has, Poland 1965, 182 min.
A meeting of officers of the warring sides takes place during Napoleon's Spanish campaign in Saragossa. The officers put down their arms and engross themselves in reading the magnificent manuscript which has been found, thus introducing us to a phantasmagoric world of returning time, criss-crossing themes and philosophical questions. An officer of the Valon guard, Alfons van Worden (Zbigniew Cybulski), chooses the shortest route - through the Castilian mountains - to get to Madrid, and experiences a whole series of extraordinary adventures on the way. He returns several times to the starting point - the mysterious inn and its eerie surroundings - to revisit regions of time and space which, however, each time are populated with different characters and seen from a different perspective. [culture.pl]
The movie is an adaptation of a eighteen-century, frame narrative novel written by Jan Potocki and the most successful movie (alongside The Hourglass Sanatorium) of Wojciech Jerzy Has.
"One of the most original Polish films − a vision of a chaotic, disordered world, which is a metaphor for the randomness of human fate, deprived of any rational element. The film gained recognition abroad, particularly in Spain and France, where critics savoured its innovative poetry, corresponding − in spite of the costumes − with the new wave aesthetics of cinema, as well as the wealth of intellectual offers". [Jan Słodowski, Leksykon polskich filmów fabularnych, Warszawa 1996]
Cinematic Poland is an initiative of the Andrzej Wajda Film Center of the University of Gdansk, Medical University of Gdansk and the International Office of the University of Gdańsk, an unit established to cooperate with the foreign part of the academic community. One of its tasks is to familiarize foreigners with Polish culture, including the history of Polish cinematography. Thanks to Cinematic Poland, foreign students and employees will have the opportunity to watch both classic films and contemporary productions.
