And He Bid You Farewell

Black and white, 35 mm
Lithuania, 1993, 90 min
Section: Baltic Films

Synopsis

In the pink mist of sunrise, a man lies on the sand near the shore, the same man who later in bed will awake from a nightmare calling out: No, I won’t go! It’s Marius, who lost his memory in a car accident four years prior. He lives in a sanatorium completely isolated from the surrounding world, a location his doctor must sail to from the mainland, a place from which there is no escape. Fleeting fragments of his former life, a vague memory of his loving wife Kristina – the only thing which flows out of the darkness of oblivion. The other patients have their own troubles. Marija is one of them; despite not understanding the lonely man, she seeks at least some sign of emotion from him. Dr Gaule discovers that his patient’s condition is improving and that his memory is returning. But the clash with reality is too painful for Marius – he isn’t able to bear the weight of changes in the lives of those closest to him and he prefers to return to the place he wanted to escape the entire time. The film is based on the novel Notes of Maurice Bred by Belgian writer Eduardas Cinz.

About the director

Andrius Šiuša (b. 1952, Plunge) graduated in television direction and shot his first film Musical Marathon in 1979. Exhibition Centre followed, as did the documentaries Picture, Day as a Day, Through Life and Death, Monologues, Without Titles, among others. In 1993 he made And He Bid You Farewell (Ir jis pasaké jums sudie), screened at many European and world festivals. It took the Main Prize at the 1993 Nordische Filmtage Lübeck and at the 1995 Strasbourg IFF. Andrius Šiuša works for Lithuanian Film Studio as a director of documentaries and features, he writes screenplays, and works for radio. His caricatures and humorous articles are published in the Lithuanian press.