Hospital of the Transfiguration (film)

The story focuses on the character of Dr. Stefan (played by Piotr Dejmek [pl]), who dares to protest against unethical experiments conducted on patients by the hospital staff even before the arrival of the Germans.

Its strengths were praised for its aesthetic quality and insightful analysis of the reasons for acquiescence to totalitarianism, while its weakness was seen in deviating from wartime realities in favor of an idiosyncratic stylization.

Stefan also notices the obsessions of other doctors: Dr. Kauters prefers exclusively surgical methods of treatment, while Dr. Marglewski sees mental illness solely as a manifestation of possession.

Seeing an SS patrol in the forest, Stefan attempts to flee and disappears into the fog, while the execution squad shoots the patients and remaining staff, burying them afterwards.

[1][2] Source: Online Polish Film Database[2] The production of the Hospital of the Transfiguration was managed by the Tor Studio [pl] under the artistic direction of Krzysztof Zanussi.

[2] In 2011, the Hospital of the Transfiguration was released together with other films by Żebrowski – Ocalenie [pl] (1972) and W biały dzień (1980) – on DVD discs as part of the publishing series Arcydzieła polskiego kina.

[8] Rafał Marszałek [pl] emphasized that Żebrowski discovered the primordial sources of social disease [...] as if beyond Nazism, at least before the extermination planned by the Nazis took place.

Marszałek also noted that the film's doctors for a long time feel like masters of life and death of patients, unwittingly laying the groundwork for Nazi extermination.

[10] According to Zygmunt Kałużyński from Polityka, Żebrowski's film fulfills a hugely important need: it presents attitudes, provokes clashes of views, engages us in the drama of ideological contradictions.

[a][11] The author of the literary prototype, Stanisław Lem, accused Żebrowski of departing from the wartime reality: even during World War II, the commander of a German unit could not, just like that, murder anyone.

[5] Krzysztof Kłopotowski [pl] from Literatura stated that "Hospital of the Transfiguration" uses schematic simplifications: the supporter of experimenting on people turns out to be a Volksdeutsche at a critical moment.

As Szpulak argued: Kauters, Rygier, Marglewski, or the writer Sekułowski are not wax figures representing their ideological attitudes, but fully-fleshed people with multifaceted personalities.

[13] In Szpulak's opinion, the portrayal of a borderline situation in a person's life takes on a nuanced form in the Hospital of the Transfiguration: There is no trace of the beauty of decay or the pornography of violence.