The Hour-Glass Sanatorium

Infobox Film | name = The Hour-Glass Sanatorium
caption = Original Polish poster
director = Wojciech Has
producer = Film Polski
writer = Wojciech Has
starring =Jan Nowicki
Jozef Kondrat
Irena Orska
Gustaw Holoubek
music = Jerzy Maksymiuk
cinematography = Witold Sobocinski
editing =
distributor =
released = 1973
runtime = 124 min.
language = Polish
budget =
imdb_id = 0070628

"The Hour-Glass Sanatorium" ( _pl. Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą) is a 1973 Polish film directed by Wojciech Has. It is an adaptation of Bruno Schulz's story collection "Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass" ("Sanatorium Pod Klepsydrą"). The film won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 1973. It is also known as "The Sandglass" in English speaking countries.

ynopsis

The film depicts its protagonist, Joseph (Jan Nowicki), travelling through a dream-like world, taking a dilapidated train to visit his dying father in a sanatorium. When he arrives at the hospital, he finds the entire facility is going to ruin and no one seems to be in charge, or even caring for the patients. Time appears to behave in unpredictable ways, reanimating the past in an elaborate artificial caprice.

The many occurrences in this visually potent phantasmagoria include Joseph re-entering childhood episodes with his eccentric father (who lives with birds), being arrested by a mysterious unit of soldiers, reflecting on a girl he knew in his boyhood and bringing historic wax figures to life with names from a postage stamp album. Throughout his strange journey, an ominous blind train conductor reappears like a death figure.

Has also adds a series of reflections on the Holocaust that were not present in the original novel, reading Schulz's prose through the prism of the author's tragic death during World War II and the demise of the world he described.

Cast

* Jan Nowicki "as" Joseph
* Jozef Kondrat "as" Jacob
* Irena Orska "as" Mother
* Gustaw Holoubek "as" Dr. Gotard
* Halina Kowalska "as" Adela
* Filip Zylber "as" Rudolph
* Bozena Adamek "as" Bianca
* Jerzy Przybylski "as" M. de V.
* Mieczyslaw Voit "as" Train Conductor

See also

*Cinema of Poland
*List of Polish language films

External links

*imdb title|id=0070628|title=The Hour-Glass Sanatorium
* [http://stevemobia.com/WriteSubPages/sandglass.htm Journey into the Underworld] -- an essay on the film

###@@@KEY@@@###succession box
title=Jury Prize, Cannes
years=1973
tied with "The Invitation"
before="Slaughterhouse-Five"
after=no award 1974-1979"
The Constant Factor" (1980)