A train rushes through the night somewhere in Poland and the engineer receives an all-clear signal from the local lineman as it moves full speed ahead through a rural crossing. Suddenly a man appears in the train headlights and seems to be warning the engineer of some impending danger but is struck down before the train can be stopped. The victim is Wladyslaw Orzechowski, a former railroad employee who was recently goaded into retirement. Czlowiek na Torze (English title: Man on the Tracks, 1957) is, in some ways, a mystery except that we know the identity of the victim and how he died. The big question is why and Polish director Andrzej Munk presents the facts of the case in the form of a crime procedural crossed with a flashback structure seemingly influenced by the 1950 Japanese film Rashomon. Four people, including three witnesses, give their versions of the event, and each one adds another level of insight and complexity to the tragedy.