Overview: Jan (Franciszek Trzeciak) and Maria (Anna Nieborowska) become a couple in 1930s Kraków. Jan tries to get a job as an architect but fails.

They struggle with poverty and extreme humiliation. Their attempt to survive leads to a desperate crime.

Remarkably filmed with precise close-ups and fragmented sound design creating a sense of unnerving dissonance, Through and Through was enthusiastically received on release and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where it was compared to Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

Radiance Films is proud to present Grzegorz Królikiewicz’s film on Blu-ray for the first time in the world.

Blu-ray Verdict: Grzegorz Królikiewicz’s Through and Through is less concerned with recounting the real-life horrors of a murderous pre-WWII Polish couple and far more interested in deconstructing the language of cinema itself to do it: a narrative bust but a stylistic fascination, the result is equal parts maddening and mesmerizing.

Rather than lean into traditional storytelling, Królikiewicz builds his own cinematic grammar from scratch - an assaultive symphony of extended montage, skewed compositions and semi-documentary looseness. Dialogue may be minimal, but it replaces this with a moody, dread-soaked ambience. The stark black-and-white imagery gives the film a beautiful veneer behind which it can hide the brutality of its content. The two leads sell the bleakness of their descent into crime with impressive restraint, though their character is often swallowed whole by Królikiewicz’s overpowering form.

Early scenes, such as a meandering introduction in a drinking den that barely features the main pair, test the limits of even the most patient viewer. Time compresses and expands wildly between shots, with great gulfs of story leaping by unannounced. And when it comes to violence, Królikiewicz chooses obfuscation over exploitation: one murder is filmed entirely from behind a closed door, offering only muffled sounds and a trembling frame. And it’s as interesting as it is unsatisfying.

But that’s the point. Through and Through isn’t after your love. Or if it is, it fails whole heartedly. It’s a film to admire for its craft and defiance of the traditions of cinema, but not necessarily one to engage emotionally. And in that end, it’s not a story told but more a film felt (and when’s the last time you experienced something like that?)

Limited Edition Special Features:
New 2K restoration supervised by cinematographer Bogdan Dziworski
Uncompressed mono PCM audio
New interview with critic Micha³ Oleszczyk (2025)
Three short films by Grzegorz Królikiewicz: Everyone Gets What They Don’t Need (1966, 12 mins), Brothers (1971, 6 mins), Don’t Cry (1972, 9 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 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

Official Purchase Link