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

The Saragossa Manuscript, a majestic roller-coaster of a movie, is perhaps best described as a tale within a tale. Or in fact several tales within tales within tales. The structure of the film, as well as the book: Count Jan Potocki’s marvellously multilayered masterpiece Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse (Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie in Polish translation), is mind-bogglingly complex.

The atypical, even surreal, frame-tale structuring of Jan Potocki’s epic was perfect for the genius of director Wojciech Has. The director’s ability to layer and blend, weave complex dream sequences and blur the boundaries of fact and fantasy make for a sensual, gothic, horrific, surreal, dreamy, comic classic.

The Saragossa Manuscript defies categorisation. It can be alternately described as art-house, fantasy or super-production but none of these labels do it any kind of justice. It is all these things. And more. However, one of the joys of this film, despite its three-hour running time, is its freshness, vitality and, above all, its brilliant humour.

Polish humour is often characterised, by Poles themselves, as oscillating around the sublime and the ridiculous, but more often the ridiculous. We have to bear in mind the fact that when Count Jan Potocki wrote his epic, Poland had gone from being one of the chief European powers of the 17th century to nil. Poland was wiped off the European map in 1795 for 123 years. The Poland of Potocki’s day was a non-existent state subsumed by the Prussian, Austrian and Russian Empires. Poland had, quite literally, gone from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Polish humour reflects (and perhaps even maps) Polish history. The Poland of Wojciech Has was a state which had re-gained independence, fought two World Wars and come out triumphant only to find the victory a hollow one with Poland firmly, yet tragically, within the iron grip of Stalinism. Again, from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Although Wojciech Has is without doubt in a league of his own, parallels can be drawn with other Polish directors and films. There are comic, almost farcical, moments in The Saragossa Manuscript that might even be compared to the buffoonery of Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) or the eerie sense of humour that seems to pervade Rosemary’s Baby (1968). The surreal adventures and tales of The Saragossa Manuscript are neither out of place or too engaging for Polish audiences as demonstrated by the later cult status of the surreal black and white comedy Rejs (1970).

The Saragossa Manuscript is most certainly a one-off but its tone, especially its at times odd-ball humour, is very Polish. The humour permeates all aspects of the film. The film even makes light-hearted references to its own Chinese box, yarn-within-yarn, structure. The characters laconically signal the beginning of further stories with “That reminds me of a tale I once heard…” in “here we go again” fashion. In the same vein, one of the characters comments, meta-text-like, on the absurdity of these yarns-within-yarns with a “It’s enough to drive you absolutely crazy”. Although macabre and grotesque at times, The Saragossa Manuscript is never pretentious and enjoys making fun of itself, its characters and even the structure of the film itself.

Wojciech Has combines various types of comic, absurd, experiences within The Saragossa Manuscript. At the beginning of the film the character Alfonse is courted by two sensual Sapphic sirens. Things start to hot up. They explain to Alfonse that they are sisters who have never known the pleasure of a man and have only been intimate with each other. Things are now bubbling and getting very steamy. Alfonse (which by happy coincidence means “Pimp” in Polish) is told by the Princess sisters that he is in fact their distant cousin and must marry them both to provide them with heirs to the Gomelez line. Alfonse is more than happy to do his duty. At this point Wojciech Has whips the carpet from under our frustrated feet and Alfonse awakens to find not the sensual Sapphic sirens but two corpses instead.

In another scene the father of Alfonse is depicted challenging another man to a duel. The absurd politeness of the whole affair reaches its apex when his father is stabbed through the chest and the other man kindly asks Alfonse’ father if he can now have his blade back. “Of course, Señor,” remarks Alfonse’ father. The man removes his blade, cleans it after which Alfonse’ father collapses.

Wojciech Has combines bawdy humour with morbid humour, the erotic with the macabre. Modern audiences may find the sensuality (including nakedness and lesbian overtones) uncontroversial but in ‘60s Poland the outright eroticism of the film would have been extremely risqué. Likewise, the macabre elements (including the scene when a man’s eye is gouged out) would not have gone unnoticed without a stir and a squirm. However, the juxtaposition of the sensual with the grotesque perfectly encapsulates the very Polish “sublime to the ridiculous” sense of humour.

The Saragossa Manuscript is not only a monochromatic masterpiece but is also a comic cult classic which should not be classed as either simply a comedy or a cult film in the stereotypical sense of the word. Has uses both the imagination and illusion as focal points for a cinematographic chef-d’oeuvre which has attracted admirers from all over the world. Universal though it may be, in many aspects the film reflects the very best of Polish culture and Polish humour.

Raf Uzar 2008

But when searching for underlying influences, the city of Krakow, Poland, is to be found everywhere. Wojciech Has was born in Krakow (1925) where he was childhood friends with Mieczyslaw Jahoda (Director of Photography) and Jerzy Skarzynski (Set and Costume Designer). The film is shot in a semi-mountainous area just one hour north of Krakow. Cybulski was a graduate from Krakow acting school, where Iga Cembrzynska was also just about to graduate, and the whole film was only possible thanks to the cooperation of the artistic community of the Krakow theatre scene bending its timetables to accommodate shooting. Krzysztof Penderecki was educated at Krakow State Academy of Musicand had recently become a rector of another music school in Krakow. Even, the novel’s author’s name ‘Potocki’ is a great aristocratic family name originating from Potok in the Krakow Voivodship.

It is in Krakow, 1960s Poland, operating on rules largely unknown and incomprehensible to the West that perhaps the key to understanding The Saragossa Manuscript lies. A reality where although celebrating new freedoms upon the end of Social Realism, everyday life remained anything but settled and comprehensible.

So pull up your most comfortable chair, take a deep breath, and disconnect your mind from what you think you know. You’re going on a Journey, back to Spain, 18th Century, to Madrid….

60s Counter Culture

The ideology of the 60s was able to cross borders unhindered and it was only products of that culture (music, literature, film) that couldn’t infiltrate. Countries experiencing cultural blockades therefore had to produce their own versions.

Where’s the Target?

Not all film is made within a free market for a commercial audience. Imagine if there was a ‘Director of Culture’ in charge instead of a producer and constant supply of new film makers and actors graduating from specialist state funded film schools. Further more, imagine if stars and cleaners earn the same wage.

Whatever Makes You Laugh

What happens when you live under a state system that makes absolutely no sense, that is unwanted yet (supposedly) supported by all, where everyday life becomes increasingly farcical as surrealism and realism merge into one? Humour based on the absurd and disbelief emerges.

Travel Broadens the Mind

Youth often considers travel and adventure instrumental in coming of age, but not everyone is free to travel or has the passport to do so. For some, all journeys must begin and end at home or are travels of the mind.

Who is Pulling your Strings?

You have no control over your life and key decisions are made for you by those around you. Even if you try to take your life back into your hands, ultimately comes the realisation that notion of controlling your own destiny has been given to you by others.

Welcome to the farcical, dark, satirical, and baffling world of The Saragossa Manuscript. Enjoy!

Timjim 2008