Innocent Sorcerers

After his war trilogy, Wajda made this 'new wave' style film about contemporary youth from a script by Skolimowski. The subject is the ritual game-playing of the post-war generation, focusing on a dissolute young man (Lomnicki) who finds himself alone one night with a spikily garrulous young woman (Stypulkowska). They play out a kind of psychological striptease that ends with nothing actually happening, since neither will expose any raw feeling to the other. Wajda himself was unhappy with the result, feeling no particular sympathy for such an 'ineffective' hero. If the film still has value, it lies in the compelling lead performances and the vivid portrait of a newly restless milieu - among them (in a small role), one Roman Polanski, clearly eager to leave this Communist huis clos.