Without Anesthesia

A Polish film. Jerzy is a well-known journalist. A foreign correspondent; he comes back from war zones and speaks on television. He appears on a programme. The questions are hard and his answers are hard too. The next day he goes home. His wife Ewa says something: she is leaving. No reason is given. She walks out and that is all. From there the film is a story of collapse. Jerzy's affairs begin to go wrong. He is not invited to a conference. An article is not printed. A foreign assignment is given to someone else. Nobody says anything to him. His course at the university is cancelled. A friend hints. That television appearance became a problem. But nobody says it outright. The narrative shows no order anywhere. There is nobody making a decision; the doors simply close. Divorce proceedings begin. From there the film becomes a courtroom story. Ewa's lawyer picks through Jerzy's life. Drink, his relationship with his daughter, the arguments at home. Witnesses come. All of them colleagues, and all of them speak against him. What the narrative is interested in is not divorce but erasure: its idea is that a man is removed from his profession and his life without a single accusation, and that how it happened is never said. His daughter Ewa is inside the narrative too. He cannot talk to her. There is a young woman as well. Agata is his student and defends him. The flat empties by degrees. Furniture is carried out, books are boxed. The ending is a night and a gas heater. The narrative does not say what happened. The film was made in 1978. Censorship in Poland was tight and Andrzej Wajda tells the matter without stating it. The screenplay was written with Agnieszka Holland. Zbigniew Zapasiewicz is in almost every frame. Andrzej Wajda directed. Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Ewa Dałkowska, Andrzej Seweryn and Krystyna Janda are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes Polish cinema and films that describe political pressure indirectly. Who it is not for: anyone expecting explanation; the narrative states nothing directly and does so on purpose.