Cycle index

The Year of Quiet Sun

dir. Krzysztof Zanussi / Poland, West Germany, USA 1984 / 105’

subtitles: English

retrospective: Krzysztof Zanussi A Plane from Budapest, Anxiety, Attestation, Behind the Wall, Camouflage, Cement and Words, Face to Face, Family Life, Girl and Uhlan, Hipothesis, Holden, Illumination, Imperative, In Full Gallop, Inventory, Krzysztof Zanussi – Essential Conversations, Life As a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease, Long Conversation with a Bird, Mountains at Dusk, Persona non grata, Revisit, Spiral, Stop Thief, Students, The Balance, The Bluebeard, The Catamount Killing, The Constant Factor, The Contract, The Death of a Provincial, The Lady with the Ermine, The Lame Devil, The Power of Evil, The Role, The Roof, The Silent Touch, The Structure of Crystal, The Tram to Heaven, The Unapproachable, The Year of Quiet Sun, Time That Passed, Umbrella, Ways in the Night, Wherever You Are, With a Warm Heart, A Woman’s Business, Deceptive Charm Section index

The Market Square 12 Lotus, Darling, Everlasting Moments of Maria Larsson, Hair, Machan, Stella, The Great Dictator, The Necessities of Life, The Year of Quiet Sun, Prussian Culture, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Section index

Cast

Maja Komorowska, Scott Wilson, Hanna Skarżanka, Ewa Dałkowska, Vadim Glona, Daniel Webb, Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Tadeusz Bradecki, Jerzy Nowak, Jerzy Stuhr

Film description

The film's artistic success was highlighted by the Golden Lion at the Venice festival. For the first time this award went to a work by a Polish artist; this achievement was then repeated only by Krzysztof Kieślowski and his Three Colours: Blue. The main issue in The Year of the Quiet Sun is the sense - or absence of sense - of sacrifice, suffering, and acceptance of defeat as a moral victory, but it is hidden in an almost melodramatic plot. The story I am telling is true. I heard it at a meeting with an audience in Silesia - Zanussi wrote. The moving story about the love of two bitterly experienced people is set in 1946 on the Polish Recovered Territories in post-war gloomy chaos. Emilia, a Polish aristocrat displaced from the East together with her mother has recently lost her husband. She meets Norman, an American soldier, and former prisoner of a concentration camp. They understand each other in spite of the language and culture barriers. To start a new life, they need only to cross the border illegally...

The film was shown at cinemas in Poland only after its success in Venice and it was not appreciated either by audiences or by the press. It was the official Polish candidate for the Oscars, but, as the director recalls, it was withdrawn at the last moment after the intervention of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party.

Mirella Napolska