The Saragossa Manuscript

^director Wojciech Jerzy Has
^screenplay (based on the novel of the same name by Jan Potocki) Tadeusz Kwiatkowski
^{director of photography} Mieczysław Jahoda
^music Krzysztof Penderecki
^with Zbigniew Cybulski, Iga Cembrzyńska, Joanna Jędryka, Kazimierz Opaliński, Aleksander Fogiel, Franciszek Pieczka, Ludwik Benoit, Barbara Krafftówna, Pola Raksa, Adam Pawlikowski, Beata Tyszkiewicz, Gustaw Holoubek, Leon Niemczyk, Zdzisław Maklakiewicz, Bogumił Kobiela, Elżbieta Czyżewska
^awards
 Golden Pen, award of the Spanish Foreign Press Association and CIDALC Prize at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, 1965
 Special Commendation at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, 1965
 Special Medal at the International Fantasy and Horror Film Festival in Sitges, 1969
 Spanish Cinema Writers Circle Award for best film for independent cinemas, 1971
 ’Film’ magazine Readers Award, Golden Duck (Złota Kaczka), for ‘The Film of the 60’s’ on the occasion of the magazine’s 60th anniversary, 2006

WOJCIECH J. HAS, WHY SARAGOSSA? [DLACZEGO WŁAŚNIE SARAGOSSA?], ‘EKRAN’, 1964, NO. 51

In his book, Potocki spins a joke with a clear philosophical subtext. The novel radiates fantasy but its message is deeper. The picture of the world portrayed here is ironic and reveals the mechanism of human relations. So it is fun but not just fun. A comedy? Yes, but a bitter one.

ALICJA LISIECKA, THE DEFENCE OF SARAGOSSA [OBRONA SARAGOSSY], ‘POLITYKA’, 1965, NO. 10

There is a tone of the 17th-century picaresque romance both in Potocki’s and Has’s ‘Saragossa Manuscript’ but that is just what helps to adjust this masterpiece to the needs of the 20th century viewer. (…) In the film you find a most real world of merchants, aristocrats, rogues and magicians. Wojciech Has has excellently conveyed the climate of Potocki’s time: the charms of libertarianism, the powerful ‘voluptas’ which governed the Enlightenment idea of love, the mockery of the clergy, the blend of the lofty and the mundane, the dialectical unity of extremes: bliss and death, individualism and love of reason.