Family Life

A suburban villa, once grand, now shows clear signs of decline. Its inhabitants, too, seem frozen in time. The family patriarch, once a respected industrialist, struggles with alcoholism. His daughter, Bella, is trapped in a cycle of neurasthenia, while their aunt, despite her efforts to maintain control, faces her own struggles. Life unfolds in predictable repetition – until an unexpected visitor disrupts their routine. Although not a complete outsider, Wit, the long-absent son of the house, returns after years away. His presence forces long-buried tensions to the surface. Krzysztof Zanussi’s second feature film was crafted with three specific actors in mind – Daniel Olbrychski, Maja Komorowska, and Jan Nowicki. So impressed was the director by their creative input and deep engagement that he decided to alter the film’s ending, giving it a more ironic twist. Yet Family Life remains, at its core, a meditation on the inescapable bonds of family and the weight of the past – burdens that, no matter how far one tries to run, are impossible to leave behind.

Piotr Kotowski

Krzysztof Zanussi (b. 1939) is one of Poland’s most successful filmmakers. Working as a director, screenwriter, and teacher, his credits include outstanding films such as The Structure of Crystal (1969) and The Illumination (1973). Known for his moralistic and philosophical approach to life, he has been exploring the subjects of good, evil, and human mortality in his films for many years, and is one of the main filmmakers associated with the so-called Cinema of Moral Anxiety.

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