Andrzej Zulawski's first feature film, "The Third Part of the Night", is not as talky as his later films, but is just as impenetrable. It features a man whose family is murdered by Nazis at the beginning of the movie, who then runs away, helps deliver a baby in a graphic sequence, apparently poses (or actually becomes) an insurance salesman, haunts a hospital where he has strange talks with an obscure nurse, and ends up volunteering for a program where he is vaccinated against typhus and is munched on by lice to help doctors find a cure.
I really lost the plot after that, but the ending does have him finding himself, or a doppelganger, in a hospital bed.
We are used to dialogue to provide exposition and reveal aspects of character. The dialogue in this movie only confuses the watcher further. The movie feels rough and wild, with violence and ugliness and insanity coming out of nowhere. It was also revolutionary for its use of hand-held camera, putting you in this world, and making you feel even more disorientated.
I really lost the plot after that, but the ending does have him finding himself, or a doppelganger, in a hospital bed.
We are used to dialogue to provide exposition and reveal aspects of character. The dialogue in this movie only confuses the watcher further. The movie feels rough and wild, with violence and ugliness and insanity coming out of nowhere. It was also revolutionary for its use of hand-held camera, putting you in this world, and making you feel even more disorientated.