Directed by Wojciech Has • 1973 • Poland

Wojciech Has’s surrealist masterpiece is a moving and profoundly strange exploration of memory and the lost world of the Jewish shtetl. Freely adapting the short stories of the great Polish-Jewish author Bruno Schulz, Has constructs a phantasmagoria in which nothing is what (or when) it seems. A young man named Józef (Jan Nowicki) travels to the titular sanatorium to visit his father – who may, in fact, already be dead. From there, we are plunged into a series of dreamlike tableaux as Józef travels through time and space, reliving and reimagining moments from his life. Has’s psychedelic and poetic tribute to Poland’s pre-war multicultural history had to be smuggled out of the country – but now stands as one of the peaks of seventies arthouse cinema.

THE HOURGLASS SANATORIUM • SANATORIUM POD KLEPSYDRĄ
Written and directed by Wojciech Has
From the short stories of Bruno Schulz
Cinematography by Witold Sobociński
Music by Jerzy Maksymiuk
Starring: Jan Nowicki, Tadeusz Kondrat, Halina Kowalska

In Polish with English subtitles

Winner of the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival 1973