Film

The Saragossa Manuscript

Description: Polish epic adapted from the novel by Jan Potocki, layering one storyline on top of another at the end of the Napoleonic era. Belgian officer Captain Alphonse van Worden is arrested by enemy soldiers, but his fascination is reserved for an illustrated manuscript, which sparks a series of fantastical daydreams. Occasionally pulled back into the harsh reality of war, Alphonse crosses paths with a sheik and two princesses, who test his worthiness as a suitor.

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Dir: Wojciech Has.

Cast: Zbigniew Cybulski, Iga Cembrzynska, Joanna Jedryka

Country: Pol.

Year: 1964.

Duration: 175mins

Adaptation is an extraordinary experience

The Saragossa Manuscript: A three-hour fantasy

It's Dustin Hoffman in Toytown

By Derek Malcolm
13 Dec 2007

This labyrinthine three-hour fantasy, suffused with the mysteries of the tarot and Kabbalah, was made by Wojciech Has, the Polish director, in 1965.

Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia paid for the restoration that led to its revival in the Nineties.

Best described as a Napoleonic-era version of the Arabian Nights, it has Zbigniew Cybulski, often called the Polish James Dean, as a Walloon officer searching Europe having read his grandfather's story in an old book.

Amazing widescreen black-and-white cinematography, a score from the distinguished composer Krzystof Penderecki and a tapestry of sometimes surreal stories make this adaptation of an epic 18th-century novel an extraordinary experience.