Henryk Worcell was the nom de plume of Polish author and journalist Tadeusz Kurtyka (1909-1982). Kurtyka left his family as a teenager in 1925 to move to Krakow, where he joined the staff of the Grand Hotel. He worked as a dishwasher, buffet attendant and finally as a waiter. Kurtyka made contact in the hotel's restaurant with writer Michal Choromanski, who encouraged him to develop the diary he was keeping into a book and suggested his pen name. The result was the popular 1936 novel Zaklete Rewiry, which translates to "Enchanted Territories" or "Enchanted Places" (the title is no doubt ironic).
The protagonist of the novel is Worcell's alter ego, Roman Boryczko. The place is the fictitious Pacific Hotel, an establishment that combines slightly faded splendor with seediness, and the subject is the complex relations between workers, supervisors and owners, those who obey, those who command and those who do both. This development is parallel to (and clashes with) Roman's personal path to intellectual and moral betterment. An amusing sidebar: Worcell's colleagues are so vividly described in the book that they could easily recognize themselves. The author himself writes that after the release he had to leave Krakow.
Director Janus Majewski has put together a slice-of-life film where nothing stands out in particular but interest never flags. He is supported by first rate set and costume designs, an excellent cast headed by Marek Kondrat as Roman and the outstanding work of Czech cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek. The copy available in the rental services has been digitally restored with excellent results.
