Passenger

^director Andrzej Munk, completed by Witold Lesiewicz
^screenplay (based on the novel of the same name by Zofia Posmysz) Zofia Posmysz, Andrzej Munk
^{director of photography} Krzysztof Winiewicz
^music Tadeusz Baird
^with Aleksandra Śląska, Anna Ciepielewska, Jan Kreczmar, Marek Walczewski
^awards
 Special Commendation Jury Prize and FIPRESCI Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, 1964
 Award of Recognition for outof- competition films and Italian Film Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival, 1964
 Grand Prix at the International Film Festival in Prague, 1964
 prize for Anna Ciepielewska at the International Film Festival in Los Alamos, 1964
 Finnish Film Critics Award, 1963
 2nd Degree State Award for Aleksandra Śląska, 1963
 Warsaw Mermaid (Syrenka Warszawska) – Film Critics Club SDP Award, 1963

ANDRZEJ MUNK; TALK WITH STEFANIA BEYLIN, TWO DAYS BEFORE HIS DEATH ON MONDAY SEPTEMBER 18, 1961, AT ABOUT TWO P. M., ‘FILM’, 1961, NO. 41

The main issues in my new film? A conflict of the responsibility of one’s conscience and the problem of the bounds of human endurance. We had to solve a difficult question: how to show Auschwitz without resorting to its realistic description. I’m trying to keep away from any brutal images. In the film as a whole, it was not possible (…) to avoid scenes of illtreatment or beating. But even if such a scene occurs, you will neither see the beating person, nor the beaten one. The images of my film are filled with crowds of women prisoners, groups of undressed people, small baby prams, wires, poles…

KONRAD EBERHARDT, AGAINST OBLIVION [PRZECIW NIEPAMIĘCI], ‘FILM’, 1963, NO. 40

‘Passenger’ unfolds a singular and shocking struggle of a woman prisoner who does not resist the ill-treatment suffered at the hand of her overseer, but to the contrary – resists the latter’s graces, favours, proposals. Marta knows that any concession she might make here would constitute a threat of losing the last value she still has – her dignity. Auschwitz in ‘Passenger’ overpowers us with authenticity, and it is not because the authors show us atrocities. To the contrary. Andrzej Munk consistently shuns any situations which might dramatize cruelty. From the first camp scenes we feel that the place has changed its functions here, ceasing to be an element of the background. (…), that a number of vital arguments have been thrown over its space. (…) In the distinctiveness, concreteness of the material world, in the power of expression of almost every sound – Munk comes surprisingly close to the method applied by Robert Bresson.