Product Details

• Actors: Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Max von Sydow, Beata Tyszkiewicz, Daniel Olbrychski, Jerzy Stuhr
• Directors: Krzysztof Zanussi
• Format: PAL, Subtitled, Import
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
• Region: Region 2 (Read more about DVD formats.)
• Number of discs: 5
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B002LROQM8
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #312,884 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

This comprehensive set includes five critically acclaimed masterpieces made by legendary Polish filmmaker between 1969 and 2005:
1. Struktura krysztalu (Crystal's structure), 1969
2. Iluminacja (Ilumination), 1973
3. Barwy ochronne (Protective colors), 1977
4. Dotkniecie reki (Touching hands), 1992
5. Persona non grata, 2005

About the director:
Krzysztof Zanussi, (born 17 June 1939 in Warsaw, Poland) is a Polish producer and film director. He is a professor of European film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland where he conducts a summer workshop. He is also a professor at the Silesian University in Katowice. Zanussi studied physics at Warsaw University (Uniwersytet Warszawski) and philosophy at the Jagiellonian University (Uniwersytet Jagiellonski) in Kraków. He is the director of the Polish Film Studio TOR and has received several prizes and awards, including the David di Donatello Prize of the Accademia del Cinema Italiano, the Cavalier's Cross of the Polonia Restituta Order, and the Cavalier de L'Ordre des Sciences et Lettres. He graduated the Lodz film school with Death of a Provincial (1966), which won an award at the Venice Film Festival. He emerged as a director/screenwriter in the late '60s and early '70s, primarily working for Polish television, until the '80s, when his association with the Solidarity movement forced him into exile in West German and Swiss productions. Zanussi's work is defined by its devotion to ideas at the expense of emotionalism, and intellectualism without overt passions, which did not prevent his fall from grace with the government during Solidarity's temporary defeat in the mid-'80s.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Detailed information about the movies, August 17, 2009

By 

Polish Jazz Network (PolishJazz com) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Krzysztof Zanussi - Prizewinners Film Collection (5-DVD) (DVD)

DVD 1
Barwy ochronne (Protective colors)

Original release date: 1977
Director:: Krzysztof Zanussi
Screenplay: Krzysztof Zanussi
Music: Wojciech Kilar
Cast: Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Eugeniusz Priwieziencew, Marian Glinka, Mariusz Dmochowski, Maria Mamona, Joanna Pacula, Borys Marynowski, Alfred Freudenheim, Magdalena Zawadzka, Dorota Kaminska
Region: 2
Time: 96 min.
Format: 16:9 | 1,85:1
Language version:
Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish
DVD extras: Direct access to scenes
Plot: The axis of the film narrative is the conflict between two attitudes. A group of students are spending the summer vacation at a university camp studying the science of linguistics. One of the camp directors, Jaroslaw, is a young professor who prefers the straightforward, intimate approach to students. He is opposed in his liberal views by Jakub, who likes to manipulate people. There is a confrontation from the beginning when Jaroslaw allows to attend the seminar a student who presents the views not according to the official line. In the end, a jury prize is given to mediocre paper, while the suspected school of thought still draws a recommendation. Finally the deputy rector arrives for the closing ceremonies, and since he disfavors the line of thought awarded by the recommendation the tensions rise. They climax when student in question bites the rector in the ear while receiving recommendation. The confrontation results in a scandal and the police is called in.

***

DVD 2
Dotkniecie reki (Touching hands)

Original release date: 1992
Director:: Krzysztof Zanussi
Screenplay: Peter Morgan Mark Wadlow
Music: Wojciech Kilar
Cast: Max von Sydow, Beata Tyszkiewicz, Eugeniusz Priwieziencew, Wiktor Zborowski, Aleksander Bardini, Trevor Cooper, Eugenia Herman, Sarah Miles, Slawomira Lozinska, Stanislaw Brejdygant
Region: 2
Time: 91 min.
Format: 16:9 | 2,35:1
Language version: English
Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0
Subtitles: Polish
DVD extras: Direct access to scenes
Plot: Max von Sydow plays a silenced classical composer and a survivor of the Holocaust. He is coaxed out from retirement by an inspired musicologist, Stefan, who convinces him to compose a complex symphony on his neglected piano. As a help Sydow gets his new musical secretary (Sophie Grabol). His loyal wife (Sarah Miles) reluctantly accepts her as his young lover.

***

DVD 3
Iluminacja (Ilumination)

Original release date: 1973
Director:Krzysztof Zanussi
Screenplay: Krzysztof Zanussi
Music: Wojciech Kilar
Cast: Zdzislaw Wardejn, Agnieszka Holland, Joanna Zólkowska, Edward Zebrowski, Malgorzata Pritulak, Michal Tarkowski, Jadwiga Colonna-Walewska, Marcin Latallo, Ryszard Wachowski, Jan Skotnicki
Region: 2
Time: 87 min.
Format: 16:9 | 1,85:1
Language version: Polish
Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish
DVD extras: Direct access to scenes, Marcina Latalla's documentary movie "Traces", profiles of actors and filmmakers
Plot: Illumination (floodlighting) is defined in philosophy as a state of mind in which man moves closer to knowing the truth about the world, about themselves, and the sense of human existence. The movie follows the education of a young man from his entry into college to his final achievement of a doctorate. Paralleling his outer education, his inner education about life, family, sexuality and spiritual values is revealed...

***

DVD 4

Persona non grata

Original release date: 2005
Director:: Wojciech Kilar Krzysztof Zanussi
Screenplay: Krzysztof Zanussi
Music: Wojciech Kilar
Cast: Daniel Olbrychski, Jerzy Stuhr, Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Andrzej Chyra, Marcin Kwasny, Lech Lotocki, Ewa Telega, Jacek Borcuch, Tadeusz Bradecki, Nikita Mikhalkov
Region: 2
Time: 117 min.
Format: 16:9 | 1,85:1
Language version: Polish
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian
DVD extras: Direct access to scenes, Short - How the movie was made, Profiles of actors and filmmakers
Plot: In 2005, Wiktor's wife, Helena (Halina Golanko), has just died suddenly of a stroke in Poland. Wiktor (Zbigniew Zapasiewicz), the Polish ambassador to Uruguay, arrives to see her too late. An old Russian friend, Oleg (Nikita Mikhalkov), shows up briefly at the funeral for Helena. Wiktor wants to know if Oleg was involved with Helena. Oleg must travel to Uruguay and promises to tell Wiktor everything when they meet again...

***

DVD 5
Struktura krysztalu (Crystal's structure)

Original release date: 1969
Director:: Krzysztof Zanussi
Screenplay: Krzysztof Zanussi
Music: Wojciech Kilar
Cast: Daniel Olbrychski, Barbara Wrzesinska, Andrzej Zarnecki, Franciszek Starowieyski, Monika Dzienisiewicz-Olbrychska, Jan Myslowicz, Wladyslaw Jarema, Adam Debski, Urszula Galecka, Barbara Wachowicz
Region: 2
Time: 74 min.
Format: 16:9 | 1,85:1
Language version: Polish
Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish
DVD extras: Direct access to scenes, Profiles of actors and filmmakers
Plot: From the first shot, the film is bleak: in its use of black and white; its setting of a snowy, frozen wasteland; the austerity of the lives of Jan and Anna; a stark soundtrack; and what appears to be a deliberate underexposure of the film--an effect highlighted by a clip from a film the characters see as part of the action which is clearer and brighter than the rest of the film. The aesthetic bleakness of the film mirrors the bleakness of life under Communism...