Marta lives in a small village in the countryside with her husband, a doctor. One day he discovers that his wife is suffering from cancer and despite the fact that remain only few months, he decides not to let her know. Meanwhile, the woman knows the young Bogus, a simple and attractive boy for whom she falls in love. A meeting however destined to end in tragedy. This is the subject inspired by the story Tatarak by the writer Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, which is the theme of the film. In addition to this theme, however, during the filming, appears the personal story of the actress Krystyna Janda, in that period, that lives the deep suffering of her husband's illness, the director of photography Edward Klosinski, a friend and colleague of Wajda, who died of a tumor within a year. The director with the consent of Janda decides to alternate the story of the film with scenes of monologues in which the actress faces his pain. The plot that derives makes Tatarak a film that stages not only a gaze, never cold, on the difference between truth and fiction, between life and cinema, but also and above all a profound and moving reflection on death and loss.
