Ether

The story takes place at the beggining of the twentieth century during World War I. Poland is under the occupation of foreign empires. Somewhere, in territory anexed by Russia, a doctor, played by Jacek Poniedzialek, uses ether to drug a woman and make her do whatever he wants without resistance. But he kills her. The doctor is sentenced to death but the sentence is replaced by exile at the last moment and the doctor is sent to a Austrian military fortress. Here, while he does the usual medical practices, he continues his experiments with ether with the goal to manipulate people and their free will, emotions and minds. Unexpectedly, the doctor finds himself at the center of a spy plot.

It may seem that this is the main plot of Ether, but there is also another hidden layer as a reinterpretation of the Faust myth. As Krzysztof Zanussi says: "Unlike Goethe's Faust, what is at stake is not love and disappointment with science." In Ether, the doctor believes that science is a tool that can be used to fulfill the most perverse human desires: total physical and spiritual control over another person".

Ether is a polish movie directed and written by Krzysztof Zanussi and starring Acek Poniedzialek, Zsolt László, Andrzej Chyra and Maria Ryaboshapka.