Without Anesthesia

Without Anesthesia (alternative English title: Rough Treatment) is the English-language title for the Polish film Bez znieczulenia, released in 1978, directed by Andrzej Wajda. It was entered in the 1979 Cannes Film Festival.[1]

Without Anesthesia
Directed by	Andrzej Wajda
Written by	Agnieszka Holland Andrzej Wajda
Starring	Zbigniew Zapasiewicz Ewa Dalkowska Andrzej Seweryn Krystyna Janda
Music by	Jerzy Derfel
Cinematography	Edward Klosinski
Release date	1978 (1978)
Running time	131 minutes
Country	Poland
Language	Polish

According to the screenplay, Without Anesthesia takes place in the 1960s. Jerzy (Zbigniew Zapasiewicz), a well-known journalist and foreign correspondent who reports on wars, revolutions and guerrilla movements in the third world, is a man whose world is falling apart.

The main character is based on Ryszard Kapuściński, the prominent Polish journalist and author of the "reportage" school.[2]

The film opens with Jerzy sitting in as a celebrity-guest on a mildly idiotic television talkshow, but when he returns home that evening, he finds that his wife has walked out on him, taking their daughter with her, to live with a younger man. On its surface, the film seems to be about Jerzy's attempts to win back his wife, Ewa (Ewa Dalkowska), and to come to some understanding about what went wrong with their marriage. But as is often the case with Polish films, what went wrong is inextricably bound up with politics.