AllMovie

Within this culturally-centered tale of a Polish star-gazer obsessed with finding a new planet on the outskirts of the universe, lie allusions to the socio-political situation in Poland in the early 1980s that only a Pole at the time might fully understand. The story evolves around a tailor who is hospitalized for kidney problems and during a brief coma becomes convinced he was somehow joined to the distant stars. After he emerges from the hospital he talks the villagers into helping him build a major telescope, and his enthusiasm is contagious. For some reason, no one questions the fact that he has no training and no degree in astronomy -- until he starts getting a little static from the town elders when the Soviet Union does not like anyone outside of their space program taking unauthorized photos with a telescope (the first Sputnik was just sent up). The rude awakening will come when the tailor heads off to his first major astronomy conference, facing professionals for the first time.