The chief character in ''The Constant Factor,'' a bracing and disturbing film by Krzysztof Zanussi, is a young Polish man with an affinity for mathematics. He has a sense of the world that is clear, practical, even elegant, but as a model it just won't work. ''What you can compute ceases to be a mystery,'' he declares near the end of the film, but by then he has been proven wrong. ''The Constant Factor'' follows this young man, Witold, into situations to which his brand of logic doesn't apply. Always, it points to death as the most illogical event of all. When Witold gets an industrial job, he finds himself quite unprepared for the constant chiseling of his superiors, an attitude that extends even to Witold's co-workers when they pad expense accounts. When his mother falls ill, he demands that she be moved out of a draft in the hospital, and winds up guaranteeing that she will be left in the draft, since he has offended the doctor he needed to bribe.

Played with both stubbornness and naivete by Tadeusz Bradecki, Witold becomes a touching figure, confounded time and again by his own straightforwardness. He expects things to be manageable, and they never are. As directed by Mr. Zanussi, ''The Constant Factor'' seems frequently to be on the verge of greatness, though its promise remains unfulfilled. Directed with a delicacy that contrasts sharply with the drabness of Witold's Poland, it has a light, graceful spirit that carries individual scenes, but fails to bind the film together. In the film's best scenes, Mr. Zanussi concentrates very effectively upon the spaces between his characters; sometimes he even does this literally. When Witold embraces his girlfriend, the camera slips along their silhouettes until it finds a ray of light shining between them. Earlier in the film, Witold is sent to India on business, where he meets an American who speaks casually about the Indians' mobility. ''If they work hard and save the money, they can go to New York just like we've come here,'' the American says. Then he insists to Witold that ''every man has got his own choice - just like you.'' ''No,'' Witold replies, and the discussion can go no further. In India, Witold watches the burning of a woman on a funeral pyre and is sickened and afraid. Later on, he watches his own mother die. ''The Constant Factor'' deals more bluntly and frighteningly with death than any film has lately, and this is perhaps its greatest strength. Its courage is impressive, though it remains somehow incomplete. ''The Constant Factor,'' which is very skilfully played by Mr. Bradecki and a sizable supporting cast, won the best-director prize at the Cannes Film Festival this (1980) year.
(New York Times - October 9, 1980)

MELBOURNE - online booking Classic Cinema Elsternwic BOOKING

SYDNEY - online Booking Ritz Cinema Randwick BOOKING