Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease
The title of this film -- taken from graffiti on a wall near director Krzysztof Zanussi's home -- provides ironic commentary on its subject, which revolves around a doctor's questioning of his beliefs when he is confronted with terminal illness.
Tomasz (Zbigniew Zapasiewicz) is first seen working as the doctor on the set of a French movie production about the life of Saint Bernard. After his work is finished, he returns to Warsaw, where he makes the unpleasant discovery that he has cancer.
Tomasz' only hope is an expensive operation in Paris, and he is forced to ask his ex-wife Anna (Krystyna Janda) -- now remarried to a self-important yuppie -- for money. Anna writes him a check, but when he goes to Paris for the operation, Tomasz is informed that his condition has become inoperable.
Facing imminent death, he begins to question the beliefs he has held all his life and, with a sense of fatalistic liberation, starts to experiment with both his own life and those of others. A great success in Poland, Zycie Jako Smiertelna Choroba Przenoszona Droga Plciowa won the Best Picture award at the 2000 Moscow Film Festival.
