In a decimated Polish town, an American POW named Norman (Wilson) meets and then tentatively courts Emilia (Komorowska), a war widow who speaks no English. Each is still haunted by the traumatic horrors they’ve experienced; yet slowly, and with some halting effort at communication, they find ways to heal.

Zanussi’s thoughtful, carefully detailed story of grief and rehabilitation in post-WWII Eastern Europe wrings humor and poignancy from its characters’ awkwardness around each other. As the shy American, Wilson delivers a finely tuned performance; so do Komorowska and Skarzanka, as Emilia’s slightly meddlesome mother. Directed with restraint and an assured sense of place, “Quiet Sun” is a wry, humanistic tale of woe that draws to a beautiful and surprising close.