FORGOTTEN LOVE/ ZNACHOR

Poland, 2023, 140 minutes, Colour.

Leszek Lichota, Maria Kopwalska, Ignacy Liss, Anna Szymanczyk.

Directed by Michal Gazda.

This story began its life as a screenplay in 1937, becoming a novel, a film version in 1938, a film version in 1982, this present version 2023. The Polish title is Znachor, indicating an unlicensed doctor, The Quack, the title of the 1982 film and of the novel.

This is a moving story about amnesia. In English-language films, the classic amnesia film is the 1942 Random Harvest with Ronald Colman and Greer Garson. There are many parallels with this story.

The central character is a celebrated doctor, very skilful as is seen in surgery, caring for the poor, not ambitious, contrasting with his friend who is expecting to be put in charge. However, his own life, his wife abandons him, taking his beloved young daughter out into the Polish countryside.

A young paperboy is hurt in an accident, the doctor saving him with intricate surgery, receiving a great deal of acclaim, and the setting up of surgical services for the poor. As a result, he is acclaimed and put in charge – to the anger of his friend, now a rival. The doctor becomes a victim of a mugging, his friend abandoning him, an opinion going around that he killed himself because of his wife and daughters’ departure. This is 1920.

The film moves forward 15 years, discovering the doctor with amnesia, calling himself Antoni, a vagrant, surviving hand to mouth, often in jail. A situation arises where he helps a man with a dislocated shoulder, his abilities coming back to him but he does not know where they are from. He is welcomed in the town, a huge clientele coming to him even though he is not licensed.

The other strand of the plot is his daughter, her parents dying, coming to the town, intending to study at having to raise money by working in the Jewish Tavern. She encounters a young count, brash and his treatment, but apologising, and a romance actually blossoming despite his snobbishly aristocratic mother. A jealous man cuts the brake on his bike and the couple crash and are severely injured, the young count being sent to Switzerland for recovery, the young woman needing surgery and Antoni persuaded to do this, his companion having stolen the doctor’s implements.

This is a very emotional film, in his daughter’s not recognising her father and suspicions of him as a quack, her injuries, recovery, gratitude, the complexities of the relationship with the count. Antoni is arrested and charged but, the plot proves rather quickly so that the daughter is able to identify her father with the aid of the count, and interaction of the court case – and very happy with the ending.

The film was directed by Michal Gadza who has directed many television series including a version of Harlan Coban’s Hold Tight.

1. The title, the focus on love, the focus on forgetting, a film of amnesia?
2. The 21^st century version of an old story, previous film treatments? A Polish story?
3. The setting, Poland in the early 20^th century, the early sequences in 1920? Later sequences in the mid-30s? Costumes and decor, city life, country life? The musical score, Polish songs, and the cinema?
4. The introduction to Dr Wilczur, the hospital, the surgery, his reputation? His family background, the scenes at home, with his wife, her distance? Love for his daughter, the scene of sewing the heart on her teddy bear? His wife leaving him, abandoning him, taking her daughter? The relationship with his friend, his friend’s ambition to head the Department, their discussions?
5. The couple walking, talking ambitions, the newspaper article, the doctor wanting more copies, sending the little boy, dropping the papers, run down, Dr Wilczur and his response, the surgery, the recovery?
6. Dr Wilczur, seeking information for the address, the money, the gang brutalising him, mugging him? His friend seeing the situation, his moral choice, abandoning Dr Wilczur? The doctor not dead?
7. His wife, the daughter, the travelling to the lover, her new way of life?
8. 15 years later? The doctor having become Antoni, his identity from the thief, wandering the countryside, surviving, vagrant, many times in prison? The audience knowing who he was, responding to his amnesia, his lost life, but the various scenes of his skills, the man in the cart, thinking his dislocated shoulder? The young man and the damage to his leg, the threat of imprisonment as a fake doctor, his decisions, the bond with Zoska, her taking the doctor’s implements, his work on the young man’s leg, the detail of the improvised surgery, the later recovery even to the young man dancing? Everybody in the village coming to him, the queues outside?
9. The story of Marysia, the audience knowing who she was? Her friendship with Michal, her coming to the village, wanting to study medicine, earning money at the Jewish Tavern, playing the piano, waitress, her enthusiasm, her bonding with the owner, with the customers?
10. The young count, on his motorbike, the friend on the horse, galloping, knocking the man in the cart? At the Tavern, the bet about charming Marysia? Her overhearing, his approach, her rejection? It seeming unlikely that they would become a couple – yet the credibility of the growing relationship, his apologies, his smart responses, the issue of her friend and his injury, her going to the mansion, intruding, making demands about responsibility? The count, his response, and to pay expenses? The softening of his attitude and her attitudes? His coming to the Tavern and acting as a waiter? The response of his mother, her severity and snobbishness? His father?
11. The jealous man at the Tavern, Marysia and her rejection of him? Her urging him to court the young woman who loved him? with the bike? The carefree ride, riding past Antoni and Zoska, the crash, the rescue, the doctor, the inability to help, the arrival of the count’s parents, taking the count, sending him to Switzerland for rehabilitation? Zoxka taking the doctor’s implements? Antoni and his decision, to do the craniotomy on Marysia? The success?
12. Antoni and his new life, the relationship with Zoska picked blinked, happiness? Life in the village? Marysia at her recuperation? Antoni on the train, going to see the doctor, people recognising him, the audience seeing the bust in honour of him? The doctor travelling to the village, but not revealing the truth?
13. Marysia, her recovery, the issue of the ring, her writing letters, the mother hiding them, her giving a letter to the butler, his giving it to the father, the father reading it, finding the letters, his condemnation of his wife and her dominating him? The phone call to the son, the count returning, his search for Marysia, her decision to move away, glimpsing her in the train? The count and his finding out about Marysia, her parents, the mystery of her actual father?
14. The arrest, the hearing, Antoni pleading guilty, in the papers, the young man at the hospital reading it, going to the case, his testimony, the young boy whom the doctor had saved earlier? The past friend, going to the court, but his not revealing the truth? (And the screenplay not giving any further indication of what happened to him?)
15. The count, finding Marysia, the happy reunion, hurrying the car, to the court, her testimony, declaration of her name, and the reconciliation, her father recognising her?
16. And happy ending, double wedding, the celebrations?