The Codes
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The Codes | |
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Directed by | Wojciech Has |
Written by | Andrzej Kijowski |
Starring | Jan Kreczmar Zbigniew Cybulski Irena Eichlerówna |
Cinematography | Mieczysław Jahoda |
Music by | Krzysztof Penderecki |
Release date |
|
Running time | 80 min |
Language | Polish |
The Codes is the English title for Szyfry, a Polish film released in 1966, directed by Wojciech Has.
Story
Tadeusz (Jan Kreczmar) is a Polish veteran of World War II who fled to London at the end of the war, leaving behind his wife Zofia (Irena Eichlerówna) and son, Maciek (Zbigniew Cybulski[1]), who disappeared when he was 12 years old.
Tadeusz returns to Kraków to discover that Maciek is alive, his wife may have been a partisan, and that his son may have turned his own mother in to the authorities.
During Maciek's struggle to understand his parents' history, questions arise concerning collaboration with the Gestapo and retribution by the Home Army. Has pictures the mystical lost boy in a dark fairy-tale forest, full of the war's ghosts and wholesale executions. The hypnotic quality of these excursions foreshadows the mesmerizing passages of Has' later film, The Hour-Glass Sanatorium.
Cast
- Jan Kreczmar as Tadeusz
- Zbigniew Cybulski as Maciek
- Ignacy Gogolewski as Doctor Gross
- Irena Horecka as Aunt Helena
- Janusz Klosinski as Antiquary
- Adam Dzieszynski as Receptionist in 'Hotel Polski'
- Irena Eichlerówna as Zofia
- Janusz Gajos as White monk
- Barbara Krafftówna as Jadwiga
- Zofia Merle as Forester's daughter
See also
References
- ^ Directory of World Cinema, Volume 8 edited by Adam Bingham, v. 8 p. 15
External links