The Codes


The Codes is the English title for Szyfry, a Polish film released in 1966, directed by Wojciech Has.

Story

Tadeusz is a Polish veteran of World War II who fled to London at the end of the war, leaving behind his wife Zofia and two sons, Maciek and Jedrek, who disappeared when he was 17 years old.
Tadeusz returns to Kraków to discover if Jedrek may be alive. His wife and son Maciek were members of resistance - was it possible that the second son may have been the traitor?
During Maciek's struggle to explain to his father their history during German occupation, questions arise concerning collaboration with the Gestapo and retribution by the Home Army. Has pictures the mystical lost boy in a dark fairy-tale forest, full of the war's ghosts and wholesale executions. The hypnotic quality of these excursions foreshadows the mesmerizing passages of Has' later film, The Hour-Glass Sanatorium.

Cast