As we are informed in the opening credits, the Polish title means Lesson of a Dead Language. The place is Turka, a small town southwest of Lemberg (Lviv) in the Eastern part of the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia, today in the Ukraine. The time is 1918, close to the end of WWI and of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Lieutenant of Uhlans Alfred Kiekeritz, suffering of advanced consumption, is nearing his own end, reliving his past military exploits in bleak fever dreams and trying to find a meaning in his (and his country's) predicament. He attends seances and incongruously collects art such as a statuette of Artemis found in the ruins of a burned building and an icon of the Mother of God bought from a priest.

Not much happens in Turka. Mysterious trains pass through the station both to and from the front, their destination unknown. Kiekeritz attends to his few duties, one of which is to guard Russian prisoners. These are not mistreated unless they carry Bolshevik emblems, which warrants summary execution (the presence of Bolsheviks is a chilling forerunner of the coming Russian Civil War that will sweep into Galicia two years later).

In spite of the scarcity of action, this movie attracts and holds your attention to the end. One of the reasons is the restrained, magnetic performance by Olgierd Lukaszewicz as Kiekeritz, supported by an equally excellent cast. Another is the way director Janusz Majewski and cinematographer Zygmunt Samosiuk capture in subdued tones the melancholic landscapes of Galicia in the fall and in the dead of winter at the end.