How To Be Loved

Director: Wojciech Jerzy Has
Script: Kazimierz Brandys
Cinematography: Stefan Matyjaszkiewicz
Editing: Zofia Dwornik
Music: Lucjan Kaszycki
Cast: Barbara Krafftówna, Zbigniew Cybulski

Poland 1962
101′

language: polish
subtitles: —

For Felicja (Barbara Krafftówna), the plane to Paris becomes a time machine, carrying the actress back to wartime Kraków, where during the occupation she hid her great love, the actor Wiktor Rawicz (Zbigniew Cybulski), who was wanted by the Gestapo. Through the heroine’s inner monologue, reconstructing the painful story of their relationship, we see that sacrifice was not enough to be loved, and that love saved no one.

An outstanding adaptation of Kazimierz Brandys’s novel. The only masterpiece of the Polish School with a female protagonist, it highlights—also through the biting evocation of the All Souls’ Day scene from Ashes and Diamonds—the silence of its creators regarding the wartime drama of women, unfolding outside the grand historical narrative. Barbara Krafftówna delivers the performance of a lifetime, and Zbigniew Cybulski challenges the myth of Maciek Chełmicki.