Angelus Silesius

A mix of fantasy and sci-fi, the film entwines Navajo lore with a reclusive trillionaire and his would-be biographer, creating a fascinating, mysterious and idiosyncratic vision of America.

Inspired by the tale of Telemachus in Homer’s Odyssey, young Adam’s mother is persecuted by the state police because his father fought in WWII as a pilot before disappearing. Adam fantasizes about his father and one day, while watching Godard’s Contempt in the cinema, finds himself transported into the dressing room of Brigitte Bardot and into a world where he meets a coterie of her contemporary celebrities.

Adam survived a car accident that killed his partner, Basia, and his best friend, Kamil. From that moment, Adam, a poet and promising university literature professor, gave up teaching and found work and refuge in a shopping mall. Reading the Divine Comedy and sleeping provide him with respite from the tormenting pain. In his sleep, he can visit a parallel world where he encounters loved ones and ghosts of his imagination. Added to his personal suffering is that of Poland, devastated by natural and political disasters throughout 2010. Adam, like Dante with Beatrice, continues to have one goal before him: to find his beloved Basia.

Lech Majewski opens up the world of Jacek Malczewski, a symbolist painter from the turn of the twentieth century. In a wordless visual dialogue, the director recreates Poland’s history from the World War I to the present day.