This essay is a chapter in the authoress doctoral thesis 'Wizerunki polskiej religijnosci w filmie fabularnym' (Images of Polish Religiosity in Feature Film) She undertakes an attempt to interpret Andrzej Zulawski's film as a text of culture that actualizes the myth of apocalypse: the myth is dealt with as a continually renewed model story clarifying the sense of events taking place in the story. The image of a disaster come true is interpreted as one of the crisis of the canon of culture; its destruction - according to the apocalyptic message - is however supposed to lead towards a revival of the world of values. The protagonist, who shows traces of ancient and Christian descent, embarks on the mission. The depiction of the hero's journey through the night-enveloped world of war destruction is subordinated to the logic of (Victor Turner's) liminal experience. According to authoress' line of reasoning, the successive phases of this experience take place on the plane of a spiral labyrinth, the form organizing the space of the represented world. In addition to this interpretation of the labyrinthine-apocalyptic vision, the film fits the tradition of baroque with its concepts of a world and God in motion.
