The structure of the crystal
I believe that great films are those that ask questions without providing answers, those that direct the spectator's gaze towards problems in their own lives without offering solutions. This is what Zanussi does in his first feature film, a film whose question is: «how do you choose to live your life?». It feels like reading Kierkegaard, watching this film. The existential anguish of the either/or, aggravated by the absence of that escape route which is God. The two protagonists, both physicists, contain two opposing life choices, the two paths of the either/or: one retired for life private and married, the other dedicated to academic life. One excludes the other. But, at the same time, one needs the other: only in this way does the alternative to our choice appear before us. In this way, the synthesis between one aut and the other: boredom, silence, sweet doing nothing.
