A ghost ship where the only monster is leadership itself.
Andrzej Wajda's English-language film of a novella by Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, aka Joseph Conrad, about a young man in his first command as a sea captain. A series of crises prove incredibly difficult for his new authority, for the sea is curiously becalmed and the crew is weakened by feverish malaria. When the first mate's fear convinces many that the ship is haunted and cursed by the malevolent spirit of the previous captain, the young man must cope with their superstition as well as the conspicuous absence of much-needed medicine.
Direction
Wajda's first English film—Polish sensibility meets British restraint.
Acting
Marek Kondrat's trembling authority, Tom Wilkinson's fevered delirium.
Production
The ship itself: rotting, still, a character of suffocating dread.
Director
Andrzej Wajda
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Wajda shot this between Man of Marble and Man of Iron, using the same crew to fund his Polish political epics. The budget constraints show in the single-ship setting.
Conrad wrote this in 1917 as his only autobiographical work; the 'shadow-line' refers to the invisible threshold between youth and maturity, crossed without ceremony.
PL
GB
