A Jungle Book of Regulations

Janek and Wanda live in a single room in a villa whose other rooms are occupied by government offices. Janek stays on at work after hours simply to avoid going home too early. One day a man called Malinowski turns up with a proposal: swap the room for the two-room flat he has just been allocated. They are suspicious, and they agree. Living in the new flat is Wanda's former husband, Jerzy. They are divorced, but because he is registered at her address he is legally entitled to stay. Janek starts looking for a way to get him out. Stanisław Bareja directs the Polish comedy; ninety-one minutes, with Jacek Fedorowicz, Stanisława Celińska and Mieczysław Czechowicz in the cast. Bareja built his comedies on the bureaucracy of ordinary life; the housing shortage, the registration system and flats changing hands by swap were things everyone in Poland knew at first hand.