Pasazerka (1963)

Directors:

Andrzej Munk
Witold Lesiewicz

Writers:

Andrzej Munk (writer)
Zofia Posmysz-Piasecka (writer)

Release Date:

20 September 1963 (Poland)

Genre:

Drama | History | War

Plot:

The last film of Andrzej Munk, who died in a crash during the filming. A German woman on a ship coming...

Plot Keywords:

Ship | Auschwitz | Guard | Dog | Cruise

Awards:

2 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Aleksandra Slaska	...	Liza
Anna Ciepielewska	...	Marta
Janusz Bylczynski	...	Capo
Krystyna Dubielowna
Anna Golebiowska	...	Female Prisoner
Barbara Horawianka	...	Nurse
Anna Jaraczówna	...	Capo
Maria Koscialkowska	...	Guard Inga Weniger
Andrzej Krasicki	...	Commission Member
Jan Kreczmar	...	Walter
Irena Malkiewicz	...	Oberaufseherin Madel
Izabella Olszewska
Leon Pietraszkiewicz	...	Lagerkommandant Grabner
Kazimierz Rudzki	...	Commission Member
Wanda Swaryczewska

Also Known As:

Passenger (USA)
The Passenger (International: English title) (literal title)

Runtime:

62 min

Country:

Poland

Language:

Polish

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Finland:K-16

Filming Locations:

Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Auschwitz, Poland

Company:

Zespol Filmowy "Kamera"

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Fejezetek a film történetéböl: A lengyel film (#1.13)" (1990)

Soundtrack:

Violin Concerto in E Major

Cinematic Fragments

It's difficult to make an accurate assessment of this film because it's incomplete. In fact, it's far from complete. Still, from the pieces of what is left we can see that "Passenger" may well have turned out to be a masterpiece. Like Jean Vigo, Andrzej Munk was considered a cinematic genius who died too soon (in a car crash in 1960). Munk is less well known than Vigo but he is still important, especially in the development of Polish film. "Passenger" is the story of a German woman on a cruise-liner who catches a glimpse of who she believes to be a Jewish girl she was in charge of at a concentration camp during the war. She recounts to her husband in flashback the story of how she tried to protect the girl from her vicious captors. Later on though, in another flashback, we see what really happened: the woman was not the girl's protector, but a sadist who relished her position of authority and her control over the lives of the prisoners she guarded. The cruise-liner scenes are all done using still shots with a narrator (or, the "restorer" of the film) trying to decipher how exactly Munk intended to piece the film together, while the flashback scenes are actual moving images, shot in fine black and white widescreen compositions. As the "narrator" tries to understand the film, what it would have become, so do we as viewers. In this way the film itself becomes perhaps even more labyrinthine than it would have been had Munk completed it, and we have an added level of mystery that is as frustrating as it is exciting. The incomplete film entices us to guess how it would have turned out, and while its certainly not a substitute for the completed film, this fragmented "Passenger" is brilliant and tantalizing nonetheless.