The Contract

Written and directed by Zanussi for Polish TV, though with production values hardly inferior to those prevalent in the country's cinema output, The Contract has a premise just this side of absurdism: a bride has second thoughts at the altar and dashes from the church, leaving the assembled guests to celebrate as if the wedding had taken place. The resulting party, which occupies most of the film's running time, has more than its share of drunken and embarrassing moments, sexual indiscretions and revelations culminating in the discovery that one of the guests has been pilfering from the others' purses and handbags, all of which Zanussi orchestrates with considerable skill to tragi-comic effect. An illumination of the kind of telling details about contemporary Poland, in fact, that one can hardly begin to glean from newspaper and television reports.