Jerzy Święch

Bearing traces of the old Anton Chekhov play The Wedding, The Contract is set during an "arranged" ceremony. The bride and groom barely know each other, but this matters not at all to their tradition-bound families. At the last minute, the bride balks. Only slightly nonplused, the groom's father, a status-seeking doctor, decides to go ahead with the expensive reception anyway. Polish director Krzysz Zanussi uses this scenario to stick it to capitalist corruption, and to society's destruction of the individual spirit. Leslie Caron, the one recognizable member of the cast, is outstanding as a wealthy, over-the-hill ballerina who happens to be a kleptomaniac.

In a bucolic Polish hamlet, the tense relationship between a father and son reaches a boiling point when the men lose their hearts to the same woman and vie for her affections. Based on Wladyslaw Reymont's Nobel Prize-winning book and helmed by Jan Rybkowski, this theatrical release (starring Krzystof Chamiec, Wladyslaw Hancza and Emilia Krakowska) was culled from a 13-episode miniseries that aired on Polish television in 1972.

The film, which is a reconstruction of the life and work of Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, known under the pseudonym Witkacy, was produced especially on the occasion of the artist's 100th birthday. Witkacy is one of the outstanding European artists of the early twentieth century. Author of many short stories and plays translated into eighteen languages. Author of his own philosophical system, art theorist, painter of Formist paintings and portraits, a man who left behind a legend of a unique personality.

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