Sanatorium pod klepsydra (1973)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Wojciech Has

Writers:

Wojciech Has (writer)
Bruno Schulz (stories)

Release Date:

12 December 1973 (Poland)

Genre:

Drama | Fantasy

Plot:

Set in pre- World War II era. A young man is on a strange train to see his dying father in a sanatorium...

Plot Keywords:

Train | Memory | Father | Childhood Memory | Existentialism

Awards:

2 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Jan Nowicki	...	Józef
Tadeusz Kondrat	...	Jakub - Józef's father
Irena Orska	...	Józef's mother
Halina Kowalska	...	Adela
Gustaw Holoubek	...	Dr. Gotard
Mieczyslaw Voit	...	Blind Conductor
Bozena Adamek	...	Bianka
Ludwik Benoit	...	Szloma
Henryk Boukolowski	...	Fireman
Seweryn Dalecki	...	Teodor
Julian Jabczynski	...	Dignitary
Jerzy Przybylski	...	Mr. de Voss
Wiktor Sadecki	...	Dignitary
Janina Sokolowska	...	Nurse
Wojciech Standello	...	Jew Interlocutor in Restaurant

Also Known As:

The Hour-Glass Sanatorium (USA)
The Sandglass (International: English title) (informal title)

Runtime:

124 min

Country:

Poland

Language:

Polish

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Wytwornia Filmow Fabularnych, Lódz, Poland

Company:

Zespól Filmowy "Silesia"

Trivia:

Wojciech Has worked on this project for five years.

Best Holocaust Fiction

It is amazing that so many people can see this film without realizing that its subtext and central subject is the Shoah (Holocaust); its unspeakable and incomprehensible enormity in the mind, especially in Communist Poland where the memory of that history was somewhat suppressed. This is really the best fictional treatment of the Shoah on film, because of its indirection in dealing with this terrible subject. It is simultaneously an adaptation of a literary work by a victim of the Nazis, Bruno Shulz, who explored the world and imagery of the unconscious, fantastic and dreams like no other. It is probably the best evocation of this world ever committed to film. The film will be tedious to some, but those willing to immerse themselves in it will emerge, like the protagonist, forever changed by the experience. By the way, this film is NOT set in prewar Poland, but in some indeterminate time after the war. Where Shulz was the prewar victim haunted by memories of his father and childhood, the protagonist in this film is the postwar survivor haunted by the fate of his own father's generation - and world.