Night Paths

Working for German TV in exile from his native Poland, Zanussi seems curiously uninvolved in this return to the well-worn theme of uneasy relationships between victor and vanquished during World War II. A Polish baroness (Komorowska), whose estate has been commandeered, at first resists the attentions of a young German officer (Carrière), then exploits them on behalf of the partisans. Mournfully attractive visually (the chateau, the lowering forest), but the conflict remains largely theoretical.