During WWI, three men share a prison cell: journalist Rafał (Wojciech Wysocki), notorious safecracker Szpicbródka (Zszisław Wardejn) and former monk Sykstus (Jan Peszek). While awaiting formal charges over publishing a satirical and anticlerical magazine, Rafał makes extensive notes about his strikingly different cellmates in the hope that they’ll eventually fuel a great novel – but as he succumbs to the delirium of typhus, reality and fantasy begin to blur. This blurring is familiar territory for Has, but what’s fascinatingly new is his vivid realisation of the creative process and the struggle involved with turning raw factual material into compelling fiction.
