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One Room Tenants AKA The Common Room
(Wspolny pokoj)

Directed by Wojciech Jerzy Has.
With Halina Buyno-Loza, Boguslaw Danielewski, Krystyna Feldman.
Poland, 1960, digital video, black & white, 92 min.
Polish with English subtitles.

Has' rarely seen early gem follows the tragi-comic tribulations of a sickly aspiring writer living in a crowded common room apartment with an odd assortment of men and women—including fellow writers with whom he bonds. Rather than a strict focus on the young writer, however, One Room Tenants uses a wandering structure to interweave the voices and perspectives of other tenants, giving a richer texture to the film's description of claustrophobic community. Adapted from a well known autobiographical novel by Zbigniew Unilowski, One Room Tenants is fascinating for its evocation of the dreams, aspirations and daily life of Thirties Poland.

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