The Films of Andrzej Wajda: The Wedding
October 31, 2026
Employing hypnotic music and dizzying cinematography, Wajda adapts a landmark play where ghosts transform revelry into an eerie, tragic death dance of national discord.
An intellectual poet and peasant woman unite in matrimony, with their wedding party attended by a class-crossing assortment of society. However, the veneer of harmony is broken when ghosts – drawn from local history and legend – appear out of the fog to the revellers. Wajda’s psychedelic adaptation of Stanisław Wyspiański’s influential 1901 play where (as stated in the prologue) “everything in [the] story is true —even the dreams,” employs dizzying cinematography and creates an eerie atmosphere to offer a searing critique of the nation’s phantoms. It became one of the most culturally significant works of Polish cinema.
- Original Language Title: Wesele
- Director: Andrzej Wajda
- Principal Cast: Daniel Olbrychski, Ewa Ziętek, Andrzej Łapicki, Wojciech Pszoniak, Marek Walczewski, Franciszek Pieczka, Marek Perepeczko
- Country: Poland
- Year: 1972
- Running Time: 103 min.
- Screenplay: Andrzej Kijowski
- Cinematographers: Witold Sobociński
- Editors: Halina Prugar
- Music: Czesław Niemen
- Language: Polish
- Has Subtitles: Yes