Based on Henryk Sienkiewicz’s book of the same name, the story is one most Poles grew up with. Set in the 17th century during the Swedish invasion of the Polish – Lithuanian Commonwealth when a quarter of the population died because of the war and plague.
Yet despite these tragedies, the film is presented as a series of beautiful, poetic shots. The story follows a military leader who has to fight not only because of war but also for love, and we see his world turn from bright and carefree at the beginning, to darkness, and despair.
2016 is a special year for The Deluge as it marks the 100th anniversary since the death of its author and the 1905 Nobel Prize in Literature winner Henryk Sienkiewicz. In 1974 Jerzy Hoffman turned the second volume of the Sienkiewicz’s famous Trilogy into a cinema blockbuster. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1975, but lost to Amarcord (1973).
Henryk Sienkiewicz died in Vevey, Switzerland, where he moved after the outbreak of the WWI.
