The Sandglass
Of all the films that delve into the realms of dream and hallucination, none is more masterfully realized than Wojciech Has' The Sandglass. Drawn from short stories by Polish writer Bruno Schulz, The Sandglass is a weblike journey where past and future, interior and exterior have lost their boundaries. Joseph (Jan Nowicki) goes by train to visit his dying eccentric father, Jacob (Tadeusz Kondrat), in a decrepit sanatorium. Once there, Joseph's mind dissociates and events from his own life become tangled with that of his father's. Though his father is dead or near death, Joseph continues to reanimate him until finally meeting his own destiny. Has presents these visions through a historical context. The Eastern European Jewish settlements were destroyed by the Nazis, as was Schulz himself, and the death of Jacob explored in The Sandglass becomes a metaphor for the death of a culture. Also showing this week as part of the Has retrospective is The Doll (1968), an epic narrative, set in Warsaw during the 1870s, that follows a desperate and humiliating love affair.
-- Steve Mobia
The Sandglass screens Sunday, Oct. 12, at 5:30 and 7:50 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive, 2625 Durant (at College) in Berkeley. (The Doll plays Friday, Oct. 10, at 7:30 p.m.) Tickets are $5.50; call (510) 642-1124 for more information.
