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The Saragossa Manuscript by Wojciech Jerzy Has


RRP: £17.99
Our Price: £6.53 (subject to change)

Editorial
Product Description

At last Mr Bongo Films presents the full-length masterpiece of this incredible film. Martin Scorses, Francis Ford Coppola, Luis Bunuel and Jerry Garcai have at various times described The Saragossa Manuscript as their favorite film. Based on the book by the highly-esteemed Count Jan Potocki, the film version is reputedly a respectful, mostly faithful adaptation of this literary cat s cradle set in the weird fantasy landscapes of arid 17th-century Spain. The films creates a magical, sometimes disturbing, world of the supernatural so it s no surprise that this was a counterculture classic and Jerry Garcia s favourite. He, along with Martin Scorsese, put up part of the money to have it restored to its full length. Besides the convoluted structure, characters pop in and out of each other s stories with the random logic of a trip. The characters includes sexy ghost princeses, demon-possesions and many a corpse. The intruiging stylistic flourishes sit against the wonderful soundtrack, which was composed by Krzyszt Penderecki, famous for the scores of The Shining and Wild At Heart.

Editorial
Review

I love the Saragossa Manuscriptexceptional --Luis Bunuel
Editorial
Review

Compelling blur into a surreal comic vision of a world in which reality and fantasy are indistinguishable --NY Times
Editorial
Review

Its expert stylization, imaginative period recreations and gutsy playing by a valorous Zbigniew Cybulski as the man on the quest --Variety

Saragossa see it
Review date: 2008-06-26 Rating: 8 out of 10

Influenced perhaps by such works as The Canterbury Tales, Don Quixote, and The Arabian Nights, 'The Manuscript Found In Saragossa' is seen as one of the monuments of 19th century European literary culture. In recent years arguably it has influenced such writers as John Barth and Robert Irwin (The Arabian Nightmare for instance). A baroque work, full of stories, of stories within stories, and again stories within stories within stories, featuring gypsies, Moors, scientists, occultists, lesbian princesses, the spirits of hanged men, the Wandering Jew and etc, with characters interchanging and reappearing in different guises, Potocki's book was never going to be an easy translation to screen.

The task was taken up in 1965 by director Wojciech Has and writer Tadeusz Kwiatkowski, and the results in his original cut ran to over three hours. Seen today, and belatedly issued in the UK, The Saragossa Manuscript is a remarkable discovery, one that any serious cinephile should experience at least once.

The story concerns one Alphonse von Worden (Zbigniew Cybulski - an actor more familiar to some perhaps from Wadja's films like Ashes And Diamonds) and his attempts to travel through the Sierra Morena to Madrid in the 18th century: a milieu redolent, at first, of the dashing bawdry of Tom Jones but which soon blazes a complex metaphysical path of its own. His story is found by a Belgian officer in the embattled Spanish town of Saragossa, in the form of a manuscript with alluring pictures, left in an abandoned house. Von Worden, it turns out was this discoverer's grandfather, it's his thwarted attempts at making progress, and the confusing diversions which interrupt the way, as well as their final effects upon him, that make up the protracted story which follows.

The Saragossa Manuscript falls into to two parts, set over five days, both of which include von Worden (the second half less so) who is frequently just as disorientated as the viewer as the narrative unfolds. The first part centres largely around a haunted inn, where von Worden is seduced by a pair of alluring Moorish princesses, confronted by the demonic ghosts of hanged men, lectured by a hermit and his Igor-like assistant, captured outside by the Inquisition and so on... usually incidents concluding with our unlucky hero disappointed, left to awake next morning chastened but still unlearned at the foot of the gallows.

One of the most interesting things about the film is that, although days are shown passing in regular fashion, von Worden's experiences blur and conflate time into one disorientating experience, so that the passing of hours eventually has no meaning. Instead the audience is confronted with a circular narrative and narratives therein, unfolding like a series of repeatedly opened Russian dolls. How transient life and ambition can be we realise; and how little we really understand about the world we are in, ultimately presented here as a mirror of deception, rather than a veil of truth.

Action in the slightly longer part two settles down a suspiciously cabalistic manor and a vaguely Faustian sanctum, which shortly accommodates story telling gypsies, perhaps those after all to whom the incompetent Inquisition seen earlier ought be better directed. The events told here are more related to love and honour than before, being largely recollections of events in Madrid, but which reach new convolutions as each new character in a yarn has a further account to add to the already swelling narrative flow. Clearly to be seen in the light of the themes of sic transit gloria of the first part, the semi-farcical love trysts of part two seem less weighty and morally significant, although by the end of the film its clear that the effects upon the individual of a final connectiveness cannot be avoided.

As suggested above, The Saragossa Manuscript suggests a lot and at length about what's real and which is a dream, and then of taking life as a necessary mixture of both. The transience of human concerns, and an ultimate, underlying interconnnectedness calls into account the foundations of human reason. Whether or not such topics are given justice, even in the full three hours of screen time, and in a narrative some have seen as more confusing than deeply profound is another matter. As some critics have noticed, there's a sardonic air to Has' movie which detracts from the seriousness of it all, and which allows the film's creators a detachment from their subject matter.

Such a wholly modern interjection of tone is distinct from the original. Cybulski's hero is a man who rarely, if ever, learns the lessons he is so grievously taught, even while they are repeated to him in different ways. This while the semi-farcical, if complicated, love interests of the second part generally reflect a bawdy ignorance of greater matters, rather than insisting upon their inevitable presence. (Interestingly, having said that, this adaptation actually finishes on a darker note than the novel, where von Worden is rewarded at the end, presumably having been successfully initiated into life's mysteries).

But one can see why the film continues to attract admirers; shot in widescreen black and white, frequently making use of a memorably stone-broken, skull-littered, undulating landscape (the uncertain geographies of which echo the manifest internal confusions of von Worden) with bleached bone-coloured rocks, claustrophobic inns and the litter of the charnel house, the first half in particular is especially striking. The director also favours slow tracking movements through his cluttered landscapes. Perhaps these suggest the journey of an objective observer, who eventually hopes to cut through complexity to a revelation, just as the camera crawls through visual confusion to find its final, explicable, subject.

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Reviews


For Lynch Fans and Beyond
Review date: 2008-05-16 Rating: 10 out of 10

If you love Lynch you must see this film! It's a dizzying and epic surrealist adventure with delightful comic twists- imagine Mulholland Drive meets Groundhog Day.

A strange film born of strange times in Poland, there is just too much to say about this film here but search for The Saragossa Manuscript Info to understand why this film has a host of influential advocates: David Lynch, Martin Scosese and Francis Ford Coppola amongst them.

As wonderfully complex and intoxicating as it is important historically.

Bewitching
Review date: 2008-04-30 Rating: 8 out of 10

I discovered this film whilst reading Bunuel's memoirs (My Last Sigh). For the first 20 minutes or so Has' work seemed disjointed, the acting was not convincing and the cinematography appeared to be mediocre to say the least. Then the lead (a Napoleonic cavalry officer) ends up in a strange inn and is invited to share the 'delights' of two beauitiful and exotic women who he is somehow related to! However before the fun begins our hero has a drink from a skull goblet. Cut to a scene of rotting corpses, gibbet and sore head. What's going on? Slowly but surely a sequence of events and chance encounters leads to a colourful exploration of cabbalistic traditions, surreal moments, parched landscapes and humorous exploits. I felt as if I had drunk a magical potion as the narrative wraps around the viewer with a compelling ease. I suggest watching this film during a thunderstorm!!!! Thanks Bunuel.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Zbigniew Cybulski
Iga Cembrzynska-Kondratiuk
Aleksander Fogiel
Joanna Jedryka
Kazimierz Opalinski

Creators:
Zbigniew Cybulski (Primary Contributor)
Kazimierz Opalinski (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: Mr Bongo Films
Manufacturer: Mr Bongo Films
EAN: 5024017005891
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen,
Release date: 2008-03-26
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 180 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1964
Language: Polish (Original Language)

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