Nightmares

Little Mikołaj Srebrny (T. Hudziec), after a happy childhood with his father (B. Pawlik) in the Galician countryside, is forced to attend a city gymnasium and live with his relatives. His mother (T. Marczewska), due to illness, is unable to care for him on her own. At his relatives' home, drunken escapades occur, while the boy’s grandmother shows him no affection. At school, as a sensitive and gifted student, he suffers from the brutality of the teachers. The titular nightmares haunt the protagonist both day and night, as he confessed in a Polish language essay: “Awake is a nightmare, reality is torment and misery.” The painful initiations of teenage Mikołaj (P. Łysak) take place in the final years before World War I. He forms an understanding with his physics teacher (J. Nowicki), a committed socialist. His Polish teacher recognizes his literary talent and enables him to attend a performance by an outstanding actress, who distinguishes the boy from the crowd of spectators with a kiss. Wojciech Marczewski chose an adaptation of Emil Zegadłowicz’s novel *Nightmares* (1935) for his feature film debut. In the 1930s, the novel sparked major controversy due to its harsh critique of the prewar education system, its anticlericalism, and erotic themes.