Original title: Eter

Year: 2018

Country: Poland, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Ukraine

Director: Krzysztof Zanussi

Interpreters: Jacek Poniedziałek, Andrzej Chyra, Zsolt László, Maria Ryaboshapka, Ostap Vakulyuk, Małgorzata Pritulak, Rafał Mohr, Victoria Zinny

Script: Krzysztof Zanussi

Photography: Piotr Niemyjski

Assembly: Milenia Fiedler  

Crepulcular but fully consistent with the work of Krzysztof Zanussi, Eter condemns many of his obsessions: the relationship between physics and philosophy, the myth of Fausto, spirituality and the closeness of the vacuum. As in The Crystal Structure (1969), Constants (1980) or Lighting (1973), the director places his story in the foreground of World War I, where an ambitious doctor experiences with ether, challenging ethical and scientific borders.

Inspired by Goethe, Mann, Wagner and, above all, in the triptych The final judgment of Hans Memling, the film captures the exalted and dark climate of a Europe that was believed to be omnipotent and shrouded the abyss.

With bright camera movements and a palette of dense and expressive colors, Eter powerfully transmits the tension between knowledge and power. Although Zanussi prints a moralizing tone to the work, he also gets a lucid and current portrait of greed and human fragility, confirming his place as one of the essential voices of European cinema.