A man named Pernat (Marek Walczewski) becomes self-aware in a police interrogation room. Released into the community, he finds himself in a confusing world of murderous doctors, paranoid punks, and pushy bureaucrats. He is secretly observed by a group of scientists, who have artificially constructed him as a hollow replica of the real Pernat – now missing.

Golem is the first of four science fiction films directed by Polish filmmaker Piotr Szulkin in the early 1980s. It is partially inspired by Jewish folklore from Czechia and partly by Gustav Meyrink’s 1915 novel of the same name. The real debt, however, is to author Franz Kafka: Golem fully adopts his signature blend of confusing bureaucracy, paranoia, and absurdism. One can also perceive a strong influence from American author Philip K. Dick: Golem tells the story of an artificial man who, in his simplicity and confusion, effectively becomes more human than the actual people around him.

Szulkin – who co-writes with Tadeusz Sobolewski – offers a world reconstructing after nuclear war, although it is never made clear just how this has affected society or why there is a need to construct replacement humans. There is a high degree of artificiality to Pernat’s environment. At one stage he enters a cinema, which now functions as a bizarre sort of religious temple. At another he tries to visit a televised rock concert, only to discover the stadium is empty and the roaring crowd is being applied after the fact. When he is released from police custody and goes to fetch his hat and coat, he is rudely delivered someone else’s. The real Pernat’s? It isn’t initially clear.

Everything is run down and impoverished, in a manner that seems harshly critical of Poland’s communist government of the time. Within this miserable environment Pernat goes through a series of episodic encounters. They are, for the most part, overtly theatricalised. It lends the film a sense of Weimar-era cabaret: insidious in tone, oddly sexual, and with a bleak undercurrent running underneath every events or exchange.

It is not just the characters that seem theatrical. There is an entire aesthetic that feels deliberately artificial and heightened. Scenes are dominated by a lurid green light. The cast is deliberately limited in scale. There is not too much on show that could not be matched on a theatre stage.

Marek Walczewski makes for a hugely effective protagonist as Pernat. Despite the theatricalised encounters in which he is thrown, he remains a remarkably subtle and downbeat character. His desperation is quiet and reserved. He does more with furtive glances and awkward pauses than he does with his dialogue. He acts as a ground, more sensible viewpoint for the audience: it seems okay to be confused by Golem because its hero is confused on the viewer’s behalf. Mariusz Dmochowski is also excellent as Holtrum, Pernat’s overbearing and mean-spirited landlord. Dmochowski is a big man, and the film uses his bulk to emphasise the manner in which Holtrum looms over Pernaant repeatedly through the film.

By 1986 Szulkin had directed another three science fiction films, forming a strong contribution to global SF cinema that has largely gone unregarded. His films are currently available via arthouse streamer MUBI, offering audiences a chance to see his works and put him in an appropriate position within film history. Golem is effective, fascinating stuff.