Today is the first day of a weeklong run at BAM of what J Hoberman calls “Poland’s Greatest Cult Film,” The Saragossa Manuscript by Wojciech Has.  I posted an entry and video essay back in July as part of the Shooting Down Pictures project (back then it was ranked #834 on the TSPDT 1000; following the December list revision it has since climbed slightly to #804). 

You can read my dossier on the film here, and here’s a video essay on my favorite stretch of the film, the one that best illustrates the bewildering layers of narrative embedded in this tale: