Aleksander Ford finished editing this film in the FRG after it was shelved by censors in the People’s Republic of Poland (it wasn’t released in Poland until 25 years after its completion). This tale of two lovers concerns a young man (Zbigniew Cybulski) and woman (Sonja Ziemann) who escape the city to spend a few undisturbed hours together in the countryside; the ecstasy of their love gives way to the agony of modern life as everyday circumstances conspire to obstruct their path to romantic bliss. Ziemann and Cybulski are magnetic, lending humor, compassion and dimension to this portrait of human connection amid communist Poland’s housing crisis.