Without Anesthesia (Polish film)

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Without Anesthesia (Polish: Bez znieczulenia) is a 1978 film directed by Andrzej Wajda.

According to the screenplay, Without Anesthesia takes place in the 60's, but the action has much more to do with the dark days of Polish Stalinism in early 1950's. Jerzy (Zbigniew Zapasiewicz), a well-known journalist and foreign correspondent who reports on wars, revolutions and guerrilla movements in the third world, is a man whoese world is falling apart.

The film opens with Jerzy sitting in as a celebrity-guest on a mildly idiotic television talkshow, but when he returns home that evening, he finds that his wife has walked out on him, taking their daughter with her, to live with a younger man. On its surface, the film seems to be about Jerzy's attempts to win back his wife, Ewa (Ewa Dalkowska), and to come to some understanding about what went wrong with their marriage. But as is usually the case with Polish film, what went wrong is inextricably bound up with politics.