La Clepsydre (1973)
Sanatorium Pod Klepsydra (1973)
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | PAL 16:9 | 01:58:54 | 7,34 Gb
Audio: Polish AC3 2.0 @ 384 Kbps | Subs: English, French
Genre: Art-house, Drama, Fantasy
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | PAL 16:9 | 01:58:54 | 7,34 Gb
Audio: Polish AC3 2.0 @ 384 Kbps | Subs: English, French
Genre: Art-house, Drama, Fantasy
The film depicts its protagonist, Joseph (Jan Nowicki), traveling 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.
IMDB
La Clepsydre (1973)
Wojciech Has must have created one of the most unique and enigmatic movies I've ever seen. Inspired by Bruno Schulz' novel, Has invites the viewer to journey with Jozef to a decrepit sanatorium where his father is living. But it doesn't take long for the viewer to realise the journey isn't taking place in any definitive place or time. The sanatorium is a cobweb-filled, deserted, wasting place where only a nurse and a doctor work.
La Clepsydre (1973)
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As Jozef arrives, he finds his father living in a sort of animated suspension. He should be dead, the doctor tells him, but time in the sanatorium works differently. And Jozef soon realises just how differently. The story begins to move from place to place and time to time randomly. Jozef can find himself crawling under a bed in his house only to come out somewhere else.
La Clepsydre (1973)
![La Clepsydre (1973)]()
The movie is full of fascinating and creepy imagery. There's a great sequence in which Jozef visits a room full of mannequins that come to live. At another time, he's surrounded by men dressed as birds. The art direction and settings are beautiful throughout the movie, possibly the most intricate ever brought to a movie. Everything has a feeling of decadence, of a world where mankind stopped living a long time ago. In a way it seems Jozef is just a dead soul reliving parts of his life and all time and space are unified in this place of memory. Maybe. This is the type of movie that doesn't offer one single interpretation. But trying to make sense of it is part of the fun.IMDB Reviewer
La Clepsydre (1973)
A masterpiece of surrealism presenting a character study and artsy meditations through dream-logic. A man's past, existentialist ruminations and relationships with his parents and women are explored in exquisite surrealism and incredibly detailed and odd sets. He visits his sick father in a dilapidated mansion with tombstones blocking the door, where they treat him using time-travel. He wanders between his bitter mother and eccentric father, his orthodox Jewish past and village, his obsessions, his fascination with the local voluptuous redhead, a young, innocent but clear-headed boy (youth), and his search for the mysterious Bianca (wife?) who comes from a conflicting culture, her father raising historical wax figures that are real people moving like puppets. All this and much more interweaves with many thoughts, psychological symbols, meditations on tradition and Jewish existentialism, the sets, locations and people appearing out of nowhere and flowing together like a dream. Drifts at times and is quite long, but altogether a beautiful, multi-layered, challenging and fascinating experience. This one goes very well together with Terayama's films.
La Clepsydre (1973)
The greatest glory of The Hour-Glass Sanatorium is the set design and use of locations. The sets are complex, beautifully constructed and endlessly detailed. They create an expansive, distinctive world that is rich with both the beautiful and the decrepit. Subtle use of unnatural colour lavishes each wonderful location. Characters have self-reflexive discussions about the nature of time and memory, and the film has a strange obsession with birds. We are asked to ponder just what is real and what is fake, and if it really matters in the context of past events.
La Clepsydre (1973)
![La Clepsydre (1973)]()
There are mystical, playful scenes, such as a mannequin tea-party, although that quickly turns eerie and frightening. There is a strange sense of humour throughout the film, even as the tone shifts more towards horror as danger sets in around our protagonist and his paranoia grows. Everything is highly poetic, metaphoric and decorative. It is easy to get lost in such an imaginative, surreal, deeply textured film, with an exceptionally powerful, visually epic ending.
La Clepsydre (1973)
Special Features
- 'Moje Miasto' - short by W. Has (06:42, in Polish with French subs)
- 'Les mystères de Has' (09:39, in French w/o subs)
- Filmography of W. Has
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