Illumination

^director Krzysztof Zanussi
^screenplay Krzysztof Zanussi
^{director of photography} Edward Kłosiński
^music Wojciech Kilar
^with Stanisław Latałło, Małgorzata Pritulak, Edward Żebrowski, Monika Dzienisiewicz
^{awards (selection)}   Grand Prix, Golden Leopard; the FIPRESCI Prize and Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Locarno International Film Festival, 1973
 Jury Special Prize at the Festival of Polish Feature Films in Gdańsk, 1974
 Grand Prix, Golden Grape at the Lubuskie Film Summer in Łagów, 1974
 Grand Prix, Great Jantar at the International Young People’s Film Meetings ‘Youth on the Screen’ in Koszalin, 1973
 Warsaw Mermaid (Warszawska Syrenka) – Film Critics Club SDP Award, 1974

KRZYSZTOF ZANUSSI, EXPLICATION [EKSPLIKACJA], ‘KINO’, 1973, NO. 5

The slightly archaic concept of ‘illumination’ will carry in the film a bitter significance, if not a sneering one. My hero will not experience any revelation – on the contrary, his intellectual biography is marked by moments of impetuous disillusionment and dejection. But despite everything (…) hope prevails that at some time, at a given moment of life, the sum total of all his intellectual endeavours will emerge as one, clear, lucid whole.

RYSZARD CIARKA, KNOWLEDGE, FAITH AND HOPE [WIEDZA, WIARA I NADZIEJA], ‘KWARTALNIK FILMOWY’, NO. 18, SUMMER 1997

Out of a muddle of tables, diagrams and registered daily occurrences, there emerges a picture of a man who, pushed by fate, is trying to make good use of his time and talents. (…) It is a film about a search of the truth, about naïve questions; full of childish impatience when the answers to questions are not univocal. ‘Illumination’ was to be the description of a defeat, a failure resulting from being naive in the world of formalised values. However, the problem is that there was nothing to set against those values. Therefore, even contrary to the director’s intentions, we are determined to defend the attitude of the leading protagonist.