director Tadeusz Konwicki, Jan Laskowski
screenplay Tadeusz Konwicki
director of photography Jan Laskowski
music ARRANGED BY Adam Pawlikowski
with Irena Laskowska, Jan Machulski
awards (selection) Grand Prix at the International Short and Documentary Film Festival in Venice, 1958
Grand Prize in the category of ‘Experimental Film’ at EXPO ’58 in Brussels, 1958
[DIALOGUE FROM THE FILM]
Man: I’ll come with you. Woman: No, we can’t. I can’t any more. I don’t want to. I’m not so young any more. Man: What nonsense. You’ve given up, like everybody else… Woman: It’s no use starting again. What happened, happened. Man: We’re the last two people on earth.
ANDRZEJ WERNER, TELEVISION ACADEMY OF POLISH FILM [AKADEMIA POLSKIEGO FILMU]
The novelty of the film lies in its highly personal character. The camera is treated like a pen with which a writer commits his view of the world to paper. It will also serve as a model for the French New Wave. But Konwicki’s innovation goes further; it involves narration. The plot of ‘The Last Day of Summer’ has been reduced to a minimum. Events become much less important than the characters’ gestures and the dreams and fears which they hide.
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