What would you do for love? Would you fight? Would you protect? What would you build? What would you sacrifice?
Polish filmmaker Grzegorz Królikiewicz (The Dancing Hawk), having previously made a series of short films, released his feature debut, Through and Through (Na wylot). He borrows from a true story of two lovers whose murder spree landed them in prison and each one’s attempts to save the other made grand headlines before their eventual sentencing. Three-time collaborator cinematographer Bogdan Dziworski (Permanent Objections; Faust) uses documentary rather than traditional narrative techniques to capture the chaotic tale amid the socio-economic insecurities individuals faced and the violence many turned to in 1930s Poland before World War II. Under the supervision of Dziworski, Królikiewicz’s Through and Through receives a new 2K digital restoration and a first-time Blu-ray release from Radiance Films which also includes several supplemental materials.
Despite various attempts to find and keep work, Jan (Franciszek Trzeciak) can’t seem to manage to remain employed, much the dissatisfaction of himself, his sibling, and parent. Amid his humiliations, he meets Maria (Anna Nieborowska) and they fall in love, but that’s not enough for either of them and that’s when blood is spilled.
What follows is based on a retail copy provided by MVD Entertainment Group.
Before diving into Through and Through yourself, stop first at the 38-minute interview with scholar, instructor, and critic Michał Oleszczyk who not only provides information on Królikiewicz as a filmmaker, but provides a great deal of necessary context for Through and Through. This includes explaining the true crime from which Królikiewicz borrows, as well as reading from the script and discussing its contents. The reason that this feels like a necessary stop ahead of watching the film, especially for first-timers to Through and Through, is how accessible Oleszczyk makes the otherwise experimental film and its narrative. There’s no real apparent romance between Jan and Maria in the film, just a sort of mutual acceptance of one another in which Maria, moreso than Jan, just adheres herself to him despite an initial wordless aggression toward her with a fowl he’s recently killed. Jan doesn’t even stand up for her when his brother accuses her of being a prostitute and Jan’s invitation to her for their shared home makes the place a brothel. Narrative tissue doesn’t so much seem to be the point; the ways that Królikiewicz constructs scenes and Dziworski shoots them is so each sequence is its own short with its own intention, all of which come together to tell this larger story about Jan and Maria. With the additions brought on from Oleszczyk, the audience is better prepared for what follows.
Likewise, the singular essay by critic Ela Bittencourt in the booklet that accompanies the limited edition release illustrates the more fatalistic elements of the film, exploring (among other things) the ways in which Królikiewicz incorporated sound and cinematography to convey the isolation of its central characters. From sound spaces with discordant, aggressive sounds to intimate the internal spaces of Jan and Marie and the quiet that comes from their contentedness to using a visual framework that implies how boxed in the characters are by staging action they engage with outside of the frame, the audience is kept directly focused on the two of them while entirely disconnected from the world they inhabit. Bittencourt, like Oleszczyk, expands into Królikiewicz’s career, how being an orphan with unknown parents impacted his perspective, and other elements as they relate to the larger cinematic legacy of Through and Through. In both cases, the essay and the interview, audiences come away with a greater understanding of what Królikiewicz sought to accomplish here which makes processing the work easier, as well. On its own, especially because Królikiewicz doesn’t rely on exposition or, to a degree, standard narrative practices, things happen and we’re left wondering how we got from Point A to B, why the things that happen happened, and why, in a more specific way, does Jan refer to Marie as “his wife” and why the two are as dedicated to each other as they are. We certainly understand the clear pain they feel being separated, partially due to the repeated framing of their forcible separation during the legal proceeding portion of the film as the two are pulled from each other and they each look at the other with stalwart longing. We even understand their isolation thanks to Dziworski’s purposefully janky cinematography that opts for nontraditional angles so that the spaces of the characters feel lived in, as though someone were trying to capture them as they are, forgoing staging and blocking. This makes the opening sequence of revelry among young partiers where we first see Jan and Marie imbued with a sense of spontaneity, whereas, later, when Marie goes to sit and clean herself up, the movement of the camera at once makes us feel intimate with Marie in its proximity while the floating nature also creates the sensation of prying on her privacy. We may not know why the two are tethered or how, but there’s no doubting the commitment the two feel toward each other, especially in the face of the repeated humiliations they suffered up to this point.
The remaining supplemental materials offer a glimpse of some of Królikiewicz’s previous work in the form of three short films Everyone Gets What They Don’t Need (1966), Brothers (1971), and Don’t Cry (1972). None of them include any kind of explanation or examination, so it’s up to the audience to draw their own conclusions outside of what Oleszczyk and Bittencourt cover in their materials. What this does allow, though, is to get a sense of where Królikiewicz started and how the lessons of his short films informed his first feature.
However one responds to the inconsistent Through and Through, the restoration and its packaging are anything but. Featuring new art by frequent collaborator Time Tomorrow, the front has a minimal approach with a largely black appearance, the title in blocky white across the front where we see Jan looking straight ahead, covering his face with his right hand, and Marie in profile, with very little of her face visible. The back is a still of the film from when the two attend church at the same time, their positioning not quite centered as a cross appears to separate the two, the position and symbol indicative of their destined fates. The limited edition features a peach OBI strip, removeable, as always, for those who want a cleaner look, and the reverse of the liner incorporates the original artwork for the feature. The booklet, again only available with the limited edition, includes the essay from Bittencourt, cast and crew information, various film stills, restoration information, and usual credits. According to the booklet, the film was restored by Wytwórnia Filmów Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych (supervised by Dziworski) at reKINO and DI Factory, with the sound restored by Aeroplan Studios before being given to Radiance as a digital file and presented on the disc in the original aspect ratio. Additionally, all of this was co-financed by the European Regional Development Fun, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and the Polish Film Institute. All of this amounts to a film which, no matter how one reacts to it, looks and sounds remarkable. The blacks in this black-and-white production are inky, the whites possessing subtle shades that convey just enough differentiation that one’s mind can envision the potential colors that they may be. There’s some visible grain in the frame, a natural aspect of the material that Dziworski and Królikiewicz shot the film on, but it’s without blemishes, distortions, or other signs of age or wear. Likewise, the audio is crisp and clean, the only aggressive and unpleasant sounds being the ones Królikiewicz intentionally incorporates in his storytelling.
Returning to the opening questions, I don’t really think that Królikiewicz tries to answer these questions in Through and Through. To do so would require a bit more depth in the presentation of Jan and of his circumstances. The firing we witness seems to be because he opted to stay out late partying (and not his first offense), while the interview at an architecture firm is less in his hands and his interviewer is quite emasculating in the denial. In both cases, Jan is mostly unresponsive, taking the hits and swallowing the humiliation. It’s only after failing the job interview that Jan reacts and it involves the strangling of a fowl before lashing out at Maria — but this is the only time we see Jan truly emote prior to the courtroom. We observe no courtship, no sense of affection, no anything resembling connection between the two beyond circumstance. Thus, when pleading to take full responsibility for the violence they inflicted, violence the audience hardly understands in its slightly confusing execution, there’s little reason to understand their reciprocal devotion. One cannot deny that Królikiewicz presents a singular perspective, but that perspective is both awkward and confusing in the absence of context that only the supplemental materials provided with this restoration.
In that vein, if you’re less familiar with Królikiewicz’s work, this is a title that’s difficult to recommend solely because of its singularness. It doesn’t offer the narrative challenge of A Woman Kills (1968) or Themroc (1973), the beauty of Tattooed Life (1965), or the thoughtfulness of The Eel (1997); however, like each of these, it does offer a perspective on filmmaking that speaks to a specific time and filmmaker in a country often less represented within the collection of American cinephiles. So, unless you’re a Radiance completionist, picking this up on sale is recommended.
Through and Through Limited Edition Special Features:
- *NEW* 2K restoration supervised by cinematographer Bogdan Dziworski
- Uncompressed mono PCM audio
- *NEW*interview with critic Michał Oleszczyk (2025, 38 mins)
- Three short films by Grzegorz Królikiewicz: Everyone Gets What They Don’t Need (1966, 12 mins), Brothers (1971, 7 mins), Don’t Cry (1972, 10 mins)
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
- Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by critic Ela Bittencourt
- Limited edition of 2000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
Available on Blu-ray August 19th, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Radiance Films Through and Through webpage.
To purchase, head to the official MVD Entertainment Group Through and Through webpage.
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Categories: Home Release, Home Video, Recommendation, Reviews
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