129 Through and Through

[Finch]

Jan (Franciszek Trzeciak) and Maria (Anna Nieborowska) become a couple in 1930s Kraków. Jan tries to get a job as an architect but fails. They struggle with poverty and extreme humiliation. Their attempt to survive leads to a desperate crime. Remarkably filmed with precise close-ups and fragmented sound design creating a sense of unnerving dissonance, Through and Through was enthusiastically received on release and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where it was compared to Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Radiance Films is proud to present Grzegorz Królikiewicz's film on Blu-ray for the first time in the world.

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES

New 2K restoration supervised by cinematographer Bogdan Dziworski
Uncompressed mono PCM audio
New interview with critic Michał Oleszczyk (2025)
Three short films by Grzegorz Królikiewicz: Everyone Gets What They Don’t Need (1966), Brothers (1971), Don’t Cry (1972)
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by critic Ela Bittencourt
Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

UK and US release August 18 and 19

[MichaelB]

I reviewed this for Sight & Sound when the Telewizja Kinopolska DVD box set of four Królikiewicz features came out in 2011 - this is an extract from a review of the entire box:

The most confrontationally experimental of the directors who emerged in Poland in the 1970s (no mean feat against Zbigniew Rybczyński, Wojciech Wiszniewski and Andrzej Żuławski), Grzegorz Królikiewicz initially built a reputation as a documentarist and film theorist before making his feature debut. Through and Through drew on both roots in its fractured reconstruction of a genuine 1930s triple murder case, though Królikiewicz is less interested in physical than psychological aspects, utilising what would become a familiar arsenal of unconventional camera angles, unexpected sound effects and jarring cutting to get inside the heads of the pathologically alienated couple at its heart. It's initially highly disconcerting, especially since many key events happen off screen (though Królikiewicz's approach to sound is more overtly expressionist than Bresson's), but the lead performances by Franciszek Trzeciak and Anna Nieborowska rivet the attention even when the film is at its most hermetic.

[charal]

I watched this on the 35mm website a few years ago. This is certainly the most avant garde film I’ve seen to come out of Poland. Stunning black and white images and an impressive soundtrack plus a narrative riddled with ellipses. I also watched his next feature which I liked less and found to be more baffling.

It’s great to see Radiance releasing obscure works like this.

[TMDaines]

Yes, please. Fill in those Polish gaps, please.

[MichaelB]

I watched this on the 35mm website a few years ago. This is certainly the most avant garde film I’ve seen to come out of Poland. Stunning black and white images and an impressive soundtrack plus a narrative riddled with ellipses. I also watched his next feature which I liked less and found to be more baffling.

But if you'd stuck with him, you'd have seen Dancing Hawk, which is one of the most astonishing Polish films of its entire decade - astonishing not least for the fact that it got greenlit in the first place.

[TechnicolorAcid]

I watched this on the 35mm website a few years ago. This is certainly the most avant garde film I’ve seen to come out of Poland. Stunning black and white images and an impressive soundtrack plus a narrative riddled with ellipses. I also watched his next feature which I liked less and found to be more baffling.

But if you'd stuck with him, you'd have seen Dancing Hawk, which is one of the most astonishing Polish films of its entire decade - astonishing not least for the fact that it got greenlit in the first place.

The Dancing Hawk has been one of my personal grails ever since I saw the poster for it a year or two back so hope this sells well enough to warrant The Dancing Hawk being released.

[MichaelB]

The poster in question:



And here's Through and Through, just to keep this vaguely on topic:



Interesting to see that Bogdan Dziworski was the cinematographer, because Zbigniew Rybczyński shot Dancing Hawk - Grzegorz Królikiewicz clearly favoured cinematographers with a strong experimental sensibility of their own.

[dwk]

UK release will be reframed to avoid a cut

A shot in the film was reframed to remove the sight of a bird being cruelly mistreated that was in contravention of BBFC policy.

[Lowry_Sam]

So will this only be for the UK release? Or will it be an A/B disc and the same for both? Speaking of which, Is there a guide to Radiance releases as far as whether they were the same or different for US vs UK for censoring/licensing issues.

[Finch]

Yes, the reframing only affects the UK version. I don't remember what Radiance did for Serie Noire or Slap the Monster on Page One in terms of authoring each disc.

[domino harvey]

I think they authored different discs since they’d be in violation of the law to have it on disc but branched out

[Lowry_Sam]

I think they authored different discs since they’d be in violation of the law to have it on disc but branched out

Subverting region-coding for your region might also be in violation of the law, making it ok to put content on the disc and only make it available to the region that the player is set to.

[tenia]

Slap the Monster on Page One indeed has 2 different discs, one per region.

[zedz]

Well, as Michael promised, this was a formally astounding film. Practically every sequence had something different and remarkable about it visually, and the sound design throughout is radically anti-naturalistic. I'm not going to pinpoint examples because a lot of the fun with this film is never knowing what lies around the corner. The shorts included are just as inventive and accomplished.

I'm not sure I'm entirely on board with Krolikiewicz's apparent point that this couple's devotion to one another in extremis is something remarkable. For me, it's perfectly in line with their destructive narcissism and

Spoiler

not particularly unusual for murderous couples. Fred West essentially did the same thing for his wife, even if the sacrifice wasn't reciprocated.

[foe]

Well, as Michael promised, this was a formally astounding film. Practically every sequence had something different and remarkable about it visually, and the sound design throughout is radically anti-naturalistic. I'm not going to pinpoint examples because a lot of the fun with this film is never knowing what lies around the corner.[/spoiler]

The Dancing Hawk: hold my beer