FAREWELLS [1958]
year:
- 1958
release date:
- 13 X 1958
runtime:
- 97 min
directed by:
- Wojciech Jerzy Has
written by:
- Stanisław Dygat, Wojciech Jerzy Has based on the novel by Stanisław Dygat
director of photography:
- Mieczysław Jahoda
cast:
- Maria Wachowiak [Lidka], Tadeusz Janczar [Paweł], Gustaw Holoubek [Mirek], Stanisław Jaworski [doctor Janowski], Stanisław Milski [professor – a trader at the station], Zdzisław Mrożewski [Paweł’s father], Irena Netto [owner of the Quo Vadis hostel], Józef Pieracki [professor Michniewicz], Irena Starkówna [Countess Róża], Helena Sokołowska [Waleria Siekierzyńska], Hanna Skarżanka [Maryna], Jarema Stępowski [a waiter at a resturant in Podkowa Leśna], Saturnin Żórawski [Feliks, Countess Róża’s butler]
edited by:
- Zofia Dwornik
music by:
- Lucjan Kaszycki
production design:
- Roman Wołyniec
produced by:
- Zespół Filmowy „Syrena”
executive producer:
- Wilhelm Hollender
awards:
-
- IFF Locarno (Switzerland) 1959: FIPRESCI Award
About the film
The film has some qualities of the Polish Film School, addressing in a melancholic and grotesque way the pre-war intelligentsia, spiritually and materially impoverished, deprived of their social standing and importance by the war.
Warsaw, the summer of 1939. Paweł, a young boy rebelling against his middle-class family, spends an evening in a bar where he meets Lidka, a dancer, who intrigues him. In the morning, they go to Podkowa Leśna and check in at the Quo Vadis hostel. Their initial fascination with each other turns into love. Surprisingly, the boy's father arrives and forces him to return home.
The war breaks out. Paweł is taken to Auschwitz. Two years later he returns to Podkowa Leśna where his aunt, an impoverished aristocrat, is living; there he meets Lidka, who is now the wife of Mirek, his distant cousin. They rekindle their old love, but both are unable to make any decision to change their lives. Only when Mirek escapes, faced with the approaching front, does Lidka decide to stay with Paweł.
Renata Wąskowska, Leksykon polskich filmów fabularnych, Warszawa 1996
