A Year of the Quiet Sun – Krzysztof Zanussi | #film

A Year of the Quiet Sun is a 1984 film by Krzysztof Zanussi. In Poland, it received a cold welcome and still remains in the shadow of the director’s classics, although it managed to attract significant interest abroad. It is the only Polish film, apart from the francophone Blue, to have received a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

A Year of the Quiet Sun is seemingly substantially different from Krzysztof Zanussi’s other films. The first reason for this is that the action does not take place in the present but in the past – in 1946. Secondly, the plot revolves around a romance between Emilia (Maja Komorowska), a Pole who returns with her mother (Hanna Skarżanka) to their homeland shortly after the war, and Norman (Scott Wilson), an American soldier serving on the Recovered Territories. However, the storyline about love born on the post-war ashes is far from melodramatic. The main protagonists are all more than forty years old, mature and harshly treated by fate. Emilia lost her husband during the war and does not expect much from life; she is tired and has lost all her life delusions. Norman, a former inmate of a German prison camp, tries to work out his traumatic experience of war in the destroyed Europe and is not in a hurry to go to America. He does not speak Polish and she does not speak English, but their similar experience allows them to communicate without words. The relationship between the lovers is not a passionate desire, but a need for closeness and warmth, whereas their love is from the very beginning marked by knowledge of death. Remnants of the war – destroyed buildings, minefields and mass graves left by the Germans – play the role of memento mori constantly reminding of the instability of human happiness.

Stills from A Year of the Quiet Sun directed by Krzysztof Zanussi – Image Gallery

Embeded gallery style

display gallery as slider

Zanussi would not be himself without inserting an existential dilemma into a love story: is a man allowed to be happy in the face of tragic occurrences? At one point of the film Emilia states that one can find happiness even in pain. The ending of A Year of the Quiet Sun leaves viewers with substantial doubts about the female protagonist's doings and obligates us to think about the sense of her sacrifice. The last scene, which takes place in Monument Valley, is filled by Sławomir Idziak with frames of 'the quiet sun'. Is it meant to represent Emilia's spiritual triumph, or is it a sign of the happiness that she lost by her own choice?

The beautiful framing of the American valley contrast sharply with the scenery of the rest of the film. The little town located somewhere on the Eastern Territories where the action of A Year of the Quiet Sun takes place is drab, poor and destroyed. Zanussi managed to skilfully represent the ambiance of the post-war downfall. The streets are full of ‘ubeks’ (Polish secret police), gangs of robbers ravage houses of displaced families, and dubious individuals earn fortunes on organizing illegal escapes abroad. However, not all of those who live in this dismal surroundings are contaminated with evil. Even a prostitute called Stella (Ewa Dałkowska), a former prisoner of camp who once gave herself to the Germans to stay alive but now is doing it for money, is not really a deprived woman but an unhappy and dramatically torn one. The film protagonists are made believable through great acting – our attention should be concentrated on Hanna Skarżanka in the role of Emilia’s mother – a woman able to commit greatly to the role without even a shadow of pathos. The lively and unstereotypical figures, well-created visual aspects, and lack of definite conclusion make A Year of the Quiet Sun one of the greatest films in the director’s career.

A Year of the Quiet Sun/Rok spokojnego słońca, Poland/USA/FRG, 1984. Dir.: Krzysztof Zanussi. Script: Krzysztof Zanussi. Cinematography: Sławomir Idziak. Music: Wojciech Kilar. Scenography: Janusz Sosnowski. Cast: Maja Komorowska (Emilia), Scott Wilson (Norman), Hanna Skarżanka (Emilia’s mother), Ewa Dałkowska (Stella), Zbigniew Zapasiewicz (ubek), Jerzy Stuhr (Adzio), and others.

Produced by Zespół Filmowy Tor. Colour. 105 min.

Awards:

Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, 1984.

Pasinetti Award at the Venice Film Festival, 1984.

Author: Robert Birkholc, translated by: Antoni Wiśniewski, January 2016

A Year of the Quiet Sun