ILLUMINATION Movie Review

Illuminacja

Krzysztof Zanussi was one of the most interesting directors of the Polish film renaissance of the 1960s and 1970s. Many of his films centered around earnest, well-meaning intellectuals who were attempting to use their science or their art to clarify some of the emotional mysteries of their lives. Illumination, Zanussi's fourth film, deals with the intellectual dilemmas of a young physicist (Stanislaw Latallo) in his 20s, spanning the period until he turns 30. The mysteries of love and death, sex and money, fatherhood and freedom—all of these are enormously confusing and demanding of his time and attention. Can't mathematics and physics provide the answers to some of the seemingly random patterns of life? And what of religion, which never held much sway over his life? So many of his friends are experimenting with mind-altering drugs; can they be the source of the enlightenment—or illumination—he's looking for? As Zanussi's quietly adventurous hero explores the limits of the answers science can provide, his curiosity reminds us of questions we may simply have stopped asking long ago. This is a stimulating, witty, and thought-provoking work.

NEXT STOP … Contract, The Constant Factor, Camouflage

1973 91m/C PL Stanislaw Latallo, Monika Denisiewicz-Olbrzychska, Malgorzata Pritulak, Edward Zebrowski; D: Krzysztof Zanussi; W: Krzysztof Zanussi; C: Edward Klosinski; W: Wojciech Kilar.VHS FCT