POLISH FILM ACADEMY

Jan is a host of a live nighttime radio program Radiotelefon. He takes calls from depressed and desperate people in need of emotional support. In the morning he goes to his mistress, Magda, who makes a scene as she is jealous  of his wife. Jan sleeps all day. Awakened by Magda in the evening, he barely manages to get to the studio on time. During his shift he is upset and distracted. He spends the following day with his second wife Justyna and his son from the first marriage. Justyna is going through a dramatic time because Jan is growing increasingly distant; his work absorbs him completely. Justyna tries to convince her friend from the radio station to take Jan’s program away from him. She fails to persuade him. The radio board highly values the standard of Radiotelefon. It is night.

The boy who plays music during the break, between calls from listeners, breaks up with his girlfriend. Upset, he verbally abuses Jan, accusing him of creating a program with illusory problems which does nothing for the desperate listeners. In the morning, Jan returns to Magda and sees a man surreptitiously leaving her apartment. This leads to a fight. The psychiatrist, whom Jan consults, finds him to be very stressed. He recommends rest, but other than that he cannot help him. Jan invites the psychiatrist to participate in his radio program, but his professional responses are incomprehensible to the listeners. Jan’s stress worsens; he finds it increasingly harder to connect with those around him. During the program, he starts to play the piano and sing. The broadcast is interrupted. Jan is sent to a sanatorium. After several months he returns, mentally changed, deprived of identity and energy, with a banal smile on his face – “normal” and non-confrontational.

Waldemar Piątek, Leksykon polskich filmów fabularnych, Warszawa 1996