AllMovie

This offbeat and surrealistic drama from director Xawery Zulawski functions as a complex sociopolitical allegory. An 18-year-old female writer drums up a male character in his twenties, devoid of a past and a future and living only in the constructed present of the writer's imagination. The protagonist clings to his only ascertainable desire: to search for the great love of his life who has abandoned him, Magda. With her exact whereabouts unknown, he embarks on a journey to find her, encountering many other women along the way; en route, he gains increased knowledge about his own situation and attains insights into the many faces of Magda, guided by his emotions. Zulawski uses the events of the journey to comment, allegorically, on the status quo of Poland and the attitudes of the Polish people during the post-Iron Curtain years.