Eva Wants to Sleep

There is, in Polish cinema, a long tradition of surrealism and surrealism, by its very nature, verges on the comic. "Eve Wants to Sleep", which Tadeusz Chmielewski directed in 1958, is comic in a somewhat surreal sense though it's unlikely to worry the likes of Dali. It's hardly known at all here in the West but if any Polish movie is ripe for rediscovery it's this, for here is a comedy that is laugh out loud funny and consistently charming from beginning to end, with something of a fairytale quality to its ridiculous plot.

The title says it all really. Eve, a penniless, or should I say zloty-less, young student has nowhere to lay her head for the night and all her efforts to find a bed, including a potential spell in jail, amount to nothing. It may be a slight little picture but it has a very sweet nature and is beautifully directed. The smile never really left my face.