The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973)
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A train carries a young man to a sanatorium where time itself has broken down, where the dead are only somewhat dead, kept alive by a delay in the clocks. He has come to see his father, who died years ago, and who is, in this place, still dying, over and over, in a room that never quite ends.
THE HOURGLASS SANATORIUM (1973), or Sanatorium pod Klepsydrą, follows Józef through corridors that open onto his own memories, dreams, and childhood terrors. Jan Nowicki plays Józef, wandering rooms full of wax figures, fallen soldiers, and a father, Jakub, played by Tadeusz Kondrat, who slips between life and death depending on which door Józef opens next.
Wojciech Has directed and co-wrote the film with source material by Bruno Schulz, the Polish-Jewish writer murdered by a Gestapo officer in 1942. Schulz's fiction, dense with decayed grandeur and Jewish provincial life, becomes here a cascade of tableaux: a runaway train of corpses, a blind conductor playing to no one, a synagogue overtaken by birds.
Gustaw Holoubek appears as Dr. Gotard, the sanatorium's keeper, presiding over a place where death is administered in installments rather than delivered outright.
Has shot the film in Poland under state production, and it won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 1973.
Physical media
4K UHDRadianceUPC 5060974683659
UnverifiedNo source recorded
Blu-rayYellow Veil PicturesUPC 814456027203
UnverifiedNo source recorded
Blu-rayMr BongoUPC 711969121520
UnverifiedNo source recorded
About the film
- Directed by
- Wojciech Has
- Runtime
- 124 minutes
- Released
- December 11, 1973
- Country
- Poland
- Starring
- Jan Nowicki, Tadeusz Kondrat, Irena Orska, Filip Zylber, Halina Kowalska
More credits
- Genres
- Drama, Fantasy, Horror
- Language
- Polish
- Origin
- PL
- Studios
- Zespół Filmowy "Silesia"
- Written by
- Wojciech Has, Bruno Schulz
- Cinematography
- Witold Sobociński
- Music
- Jerzy Maksymiuk
- Also starring
- Gustaw Holoubek, Mieczysław Voit, Bożena Adamek, Ludwik Benoit, Henryk Boukołowski
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I enjoyed this immensely. Free on YouTube. https://youtu.be/kj9lue3KqKs?si=AVMTJ6OFgRaBR5Vy
There’s a 2025 remake on Tubi.
Brilliant movie 🔥
Watched it yesterday and it was brilliant ❤️🎥🙂👍
I thought that was kind of a mess when I saw it. Perhaps I loved the literary source material too much. Imho, not at all faithful. (And, obviously, not a great way to judge a movie.) And/but, still. One of my least favorite Polish films, of which I think myself, generally, a great fan.
Polish aesthetics ❤️❤️❤️❤️ always stunning!!!
It was an interesting endeavor but this story is so circuitous, complex, and self-referential that any attempt to actually capture what is happening in the text is bound to fall short of the mark. I’ll give ’em kudos for making the attempt though.
Love it
I love this movie!!
Sounds a bit like the recently released BACKROOMS.