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Surrealism in the cinema usually comes in two distinctive shades: white or black or in other words bright or dark. Its dark side is represented by such directors as Polanski, Lynch, and Cronenberg. Explorers of the dark side of human psyche, sexuality, and generally our subconscious drives, create nightmarish, disintegrated worlds that fall into pieces as their protagonists’ psyche crumbles in Repulsion, Spider, or the recent Inland Empire.

At the other end of the spectrum are film directors who place familiar objects in unexpected places, whose heroes’ nightmares are often an Idiot’s Guide to Freud, who in a light way mock anything that’s holy, be it religion or family values. This is not to say that the likes of Coen brothers or Monty Python are for laughs only. By means of comedy of the absurd, they disclose our deepest fears, desires and suggest that despite all, we should ‘Always look on the bright side of life’ as sometimes ‘The bear will eat you, sometimes you will eat the bear.’

Now, what’s Wojciech Has’s Saragossa Manuscript got to do with this? Its importance seems to lie in providing the bridge between the two. The world of Saragossa is frightening in its disarray, chaos, labyrinth-like structure, gallows, ghosts, and skulls that seem to haunt the main hero almost causing his madness at the end of the film. At the same time, however, Alfonso van Worden tries to resist the irrational element in the narrative and cares much more for a leg of a grilled chicken than for the legs of a young busty Muslim Princess appearing out of nowhere and trying to seduce him into changing his faith, perhaps even trying to damn him. As he repeatedly wakes up under the gallows each time he has met the mysterious lady (one of two), his reactions are more like those of the hero from Groundhog Day – not a philosopher dwelling on the human condition but a regular guy who is trying to make heads or tails of it all and eventually always deciding to get up and get moving. In a simple attempt to keep his sanity intact, he even accepts that reality and illusion are not always clearly separated.

Has’s film is thus surrealism in grey, which is emphasised not only in its themes and mixture of the tragic and the comic, but also in its form. Although the film was shot in black and white, its scenery and costumes lack the sharp contrast of bright and dark. They are grainy and devoid of clear definition and, just like the events in the film oscillating between illusion/reality and dream/reality leaving the viewer in the state of permanent confusion, the film’s texture subverts the simplistic divide between black and white.

Agnieszka Rasmus 2008

Zbigniew Cybulski – Alphonse Van Worden

Originally, a one-time famous theatre actor Zbigniew Wójcik was penned to play the role of Aphonse Van Worden, but his tragic suicide shortly before production began prevented this. Next a French actor was found to play the main role, but after 3 days of shooting it became obvious that he was neither French nor a professional actor. Over this time, Zbigniew Cybulski was increasingly hanging around set supposedly as a casual observer. Finally when it was proposed to Cybulski to take over the lead role, the decision turned out to be inspired as he transformed the role from that of a romantic into bungling, doubting, and much more modern lead. While he is often compared to James Dean because of his role as Maciek in Andrzej Wajda’s Diamonds and Ashes that pigeonholed him as a young, rebellious romantic, Cybulski had a hard time destroying that image to prove that he in fact had a much wider range. He was a method actor who mentioned Brando or Olivier as his models. With Cybulski the idea of a Polish movie star was born as he became a heartthrob for many young female viewers. His mature roles had a touch of self-irony to them, making him a true modern actor but at the same time frustrating the expectations of viewers. Cybulski appears in The Saragossa Manuscript without his characteristic dark glasses which needed due to poor eyesight caused considerable trouble when shooting the riding scenes. He was also known for his unpunctuality, inability to get up early, and a habit of jumping on moving trains. He died tragically when falling from a moving train that he was unsuccessfully attempting to jump onto. Andrzej Wajda’s most avant-garde movie All for Sale is a tribute metafilm to Cybulski.

Iga Cembrzynska – Princess Emina

Iga Cembrzynska was in the last year of her acting school when approached to play the role of Princess Emina. Many years later, Has admitted that he had no doubt she was meant for this part when he saw her try on her costume and it was only later that he was also pleasantly surprised to find her as talented as she was pretty. Cembrzynska has admitted that at the time the dress and the lesbian kissing scene were extremely risqué and challenging for her. Before going to the acting school, Cembrzynska trained in playing the piano. She always said that singing was her first love before acting, the best proof of this being the flamboyant credits to Hydrozagatka (Polish cult film, a mock sociorealism Superman) by her husband director Andrzej Kondratiuk, in which she sings and shouts the opening credits direct into the camera. Cembrzynska and Kondratiuk now live in the country where they have plenty of cats and dogs and where they make films that are arguably one of the most significant contribution to contemporary Polish counter-cinema.

Gustaw Holoubek – Pedro Velasquez

Another Krakow man in the film born and bred, most famous for his beautiful and gentle voice that had a tendency to hypnotise viewers into complete submission. His recent death was a day of national mourning all over Poland. Holoubek was the Polish Olivier and although he could never have Sir in front of his name, many have often referred to him as a true gentleman both on and off the screen and stage. He was one of Has’ favourite actors appearing in his Noose (Petla), Farewells (Pozegnania), Goodbye to the Past (Rozstanie), One Room Tenants (Wspolny Pokoj), How to be Loved (Jak byc kochana), The Codes (Szyfry), The Hour-Glass Sanatorium (Sanatorium pod Klepsydra), The Doll (Lalka).

Leon Niemczyk – Avadoro

Before appearing in Saragossa, he won the general acclaim of the public and critics in Polanski’s Knife in the Water (Noz w wodzie). This was not the only good movie he made. Niemczyk played in over 500 movies in Poland and abroad (mostly the former Soviet block). He was also a war veteran and a real hero awarded for his involvement in the opposition front. He fought under general George Patton in the 444 Battalion of the USA army during WWII. He lived in Lodz for most of his career where he also played one of his last roles in David Lynch’s Inland Empire. He was said to like women and Japanese cars.

Bogumil Kobiela – Toledo

Studied acting together with his best friend Cybuski. They worked in the famous Gdansk theatre Bim-Bom, whose sharp satire was mostly aimed at the absurd of the then current political system. One of the greatest comedy actors of Polish post-war cinema, his experimental humour can only be compared to the likes of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. In one of his self-directed semi-documentaries entitled Kobiela on the Beach, he parades on the beach in his skiing gear in the biggest Polish seaside resort – Sopot, to the wonder and amazement of holidaymakers and beachcombers. On the Saragossa set, he is interestingly yet another Krakow guy born and bred. Just like Cybulski, he died tragically in the 60s in a car crash. He remains a cult figure and inspiration for many young comedy actors in Poland.

Zdzislaw Maklakiewicz – Roque Busqueros

Another war hero on the set actively involved in Warsaw uprising and in the right wing army in WWII. After the Warsaw uprising, he was taken captive and sent to a German work camp from which he returned to Poland in 1945. He studied both acting and directing. He was one of the most famous character actors whose face will always be associated with the absurd and the grotesque of Polish comedies of the 70s. He died tragically beaten up to death near Europe Hotel in Warsaw after a hard drinking session in 1977. He often co-acted with his best friend and drinking buddy, Jan Himilsbach, for example in a Polish cult comedy Cruise (Rejs) where most of the humour was actually improvised on the set in the heat of Polish summer and under the influence of a couple of beers, and in many Kondratiuk’s movies (Cembrzynska’s husband). In one of them, Wniebowzieci (1972), they play two simple guys who win a lottery and decide to spend all their money on flying from one town to the next. Still, this is a bitter-sweet comedy without a happy-end, as was Maklakiewicz’s life.

Beata Tyszkiewicz – Rebeca

Once married to one of the most famous Polish directors and Oscar winners, Andrzej Wajda, Tyszkiewicz is now a member of the jury in Celebrity Dancing, reflecting the changes that have taken place in the Polish reality. She is often called the First Lady of Polish cinema due to her impressive credentials but also to her very aristocratic beauty and behaviour. She is therefore mostly known for playing the parts of beautiful yet aloof ladies of noble birth (including that of the title role in Has’ other movie The Doll). So, she did not get her part in Saragossa only thanks to her impressive bust. In fact, most of the Polish actresses on the set proved in their later careers that there was more to them than beauty.

Agnieszka Rasmus 2008

The Saragossa Manuscript is just such a movie. Although made in the 1960s, it is just as Lynch-like as Lynch is Has-like. First, when we look at the composition, we find that it goes back to the tradition of meta-narratives of Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Calderon’s Life is a Dream which explored the levels of reality and dream and blurred the division between what is real and what is imagined. Has, just like Lynch, never operates within a single-track story line. Like Russian dolls, his films are stories-within-the-stories that seem to multiply almost ad infinitum confusing both the viewer and the protagonist of the film –Aflonso van Worder, our rational alter ego, at one point observes with amazement that the story is “enough to make you crazy”.

Indeed, The Saragossa Manuscript has left many reviewers frustrated as they to look for answers. In this respect Has and Lynch show another striking similarity. Has, an extremely quiet, modest, soft-spoken and reticent man, always gave evasive answers or simply smiled like a Cheshire cat. When asked what his films are about, Lynch usually asks back, “What do you think they are about?” Not many filmmakers give their viewers such complete freedom of interpretation.

But perhaps the similarity between the two becomes most pronounced when we watch The Saragossa Manuscript and Inland Empire as a double bill. Both are more journeys of the mind than cause-and-effect driven plots. Both meander somewhere between the realms of fantasy and reality. Both are quests for identity. Both were shot in Poland.

At the beginning of Lynch’s Inland Empire the two main stars of a film-within-the-film On High in Blue Tomorrows learn a secret. As the director played by Jeremy Irons reveals, the movie they are about to shoot is a remake of an old Polish film based on an old Gypsy tale. The second part of Saragossa is a long tale made up of stories-within-stories told by an old Gypsy, played by Leon Niemczyk. Leon Niemczyk’s last film before he died was Lynch’s Inland Empire. Coincidence perhaps, but it seems that there is more Has to Lynch than meets the eye.

Agnieszka Rasmus 2008