The Hourglass Sanatorium

A young man, Józef (Jan Nowicki, O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization), takes a train into the middle of nowhere to visit his dying father, who he understands is residing in a sanatorium. On arrival he discovers a giant building crumbling into ruin, with the patients seemingly left to their own devices, and time itself behaving in strange, non-linear ways. A doctor then informs him that his father is both alive and not-alive, beginning an epic hypnagogic journey through the hospital and his own mind, with each room unlocking its own sinister, hallucinatory world. Adapted to the screen from a book of Bruno Schulz short stories by visionary director Wojciech Has (The Saragossa Manuscript), the film overcame fear and scepticism from the Polish authorities when Has smuggled the film out of the country to premiere it at Cannes, where it would go on to win the Jury Prize. The Hourglass Sanatorium has come to be regarded as one of the greatest Polish films of all time, with its surreal structure and staggering feats of production design proving hugely influential on arthouse and fantasy filmmakers alike.