Innocent Sorcerers

A film set in Warsaw at the end of the 1950s. Bazyli is a young doctor. He works at a hospital by day and plays drums in a jazz club at night. His life is orderly and empty. He has brief affairs, keeps notes in a book, and takes nothing seriously. One night he meets a girl. Pelagia is at the club with a friend and Bazyli takes her home. From there the film takes place almost entirely in one room. The two talk. Until morning; they lie, they play games, they draw matches, and neither gives a real name at first. They set up a game. The loser will remove a piece of clothing, and as it goes on both of them pull back. What the narrative is interested in is not love but pose: both are trying to look indifferent to the other, and what lies underneath is never said. This is a portrait of a generation. Young people who grew up in postwar Poland, take no interest in politics, and believe in nothing. It is entirely different from Wajda's earlier films. After his war trilogy the director looks at the present for the first time and there is no heroism. Jazz is inside the narrative. The club scenes were shot with real musicians and Krzysztof Komeda wrote the music; he appears in the film himself. Jerzy Skolimowski worked on the screenplay and appears in a small part as a boxer. Roman Polanski is in the cast too, playing cello in the jazz band. Tadeusz Łomnicki, Krystyna Stypułkowska and Zbigniew Cybulski are in the cast. Andrzej Wajda directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes Polish cinema and two-character stories set over one night. Who it is not for: anyone expecting incident; the film is almost entirely a conversation and the outcome is deliberately left unclear.