Illumination

Franciszek starts studying physics believing reason can explain everything. The film follows him across a decade, from entering university to finishing his doctorate. In that time he marries, has a child, loses a friend and meets illness. Each time the scientific frame he holds proves a little more insufficient, and he cannot find another one. Krzysztof Zanussi had studied physics himself, and the film speaks from that knowledge. Interviews with actual scientists, footage of brain surgery and passages of lecturing are cut into the fiction. These documentary pieces do not interrupt the story; they sharpen its question: is the measurable everything. At the Locarno Film Festival in 1973 it took the Golden Leopard along with the FIPRESCI and Ecumenical Jury prizes. Who it's for: Viewers interested in philosophically driven cinema, Polish film, and the tension between science and faith. Who it's not for: The construction is essayistic and the characters remain carriers of ideas. It is cold if you are waiting to attach emotionally.