THE PLANET “TAILOR”

Born in 1943, writer-director Jerzy Domaradzki is a graduate of Warsaw University's Social Sciences and Film and Stage Directing Departments. He was Andrzej Wajda's assistant director on “Land And Promise” and wrote stage and TV dramas before making his feature film debut in 1977 with the third portion of the omnibus film, “Test Shots.” Following the 1978 release of “White Harvest,” THE PLANET “TAILOR” is Domaradzki's third feature and is based on a true story. Romanek (Kazimierz Kaczor) is a popular tailor in a small town, where he is known for his ability to size up a person's measurements at a glance. On the day of an eclipse, Romanek stares at the sky and is hospitalized with an almost fatal kidney ailment. His heart stops and he has an out-of-body experience, the sensation of traveling through space as he's being brought back to life. Afterwards, he studies the stars night and day, to the dismay of his wife, who leaves him. Given only 5-10 years to live, Romanek now devotes his whole existence to astronomy, so consumed by his fascination that the townspeople label him crazy. But when telescopic photos of the first Soviet sputnik's failure come from his homemade observatory, provincial bureacrats are alarmed – and Romanek is finally taken seriously. Amusing and entertaining, THE PLANET “TAILOR” can also be viewed as a sociopolitical allegory.