Krzysztof Kieslowski

Quote:
It all starts when Filip Mosz (Jerzy Stuhr) buys a little 8mm movie camera to film his new-born baby. Like a true enthusiast, Filip enters into the spirit of his new hobby, filming everything that moves and working on the material on a small editing suite. When he is commissioned by his boss to film a reception being held to commemorate the company’s 25th anniversary, he becomes aware of the pressures of outside expectations and even censorship. The film however gets entered into an amateur film festival and wins third prize (second prize really since none were judged good enough to win first prize!) and he soon finds himself caught up in the world of TV and film-making, helped by an attractive film producer.Read More »

Synopsis:

Two parallel stories about two identical women; one living in Poland, the other in France. They don’t know each other, but their lives are nevertheless profoundly connected.

Review:

It is important to resist the temptation to figure out every last detail of “The Double Life of Veronique,” the mysterious and poetic new film by Krzysztof Kieslowski. That way lies frustration.Read More »

Quote:
Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Blind Chance is a powerful political fable that provides an early glimpse at the unique style that would later lead to acclaimed international successes like the Three Colors Trilogy and The Double Life of Veronique. As with the later films, Kieslowski displays a deeply erotic, sensual sensibility and a warm humanism that inflects every facet of this complex film. He also shows signs of the spiritual outlook and interest in fate and overlapping chronologies that is especially prevalent in the films he’s best known for. Blind Chance begins with a brief, elliptical precis of the early life of Witek (Boguslaw Linda), starting with a few childhood scenes, his first love, his days in medical school, and finally the death of his father. Many of these earlier memories will later be shown to be false or at least incomplete, hazily remembered scenes from the distant past that have taken on iconic status in Witek’s mind even if the particulars aren’t quite accurate.Read More »

Portrait of an artist as a young manic. First, a montage of still photographs of an artist’s face. Then motion. He stirs in sleep; he paints and expresses frustration. He looks for a light for his cigarette. He sketches, wads it up; makes tea; stares at his face in a mirror, then looks at canvas after canvas of self-portraits. He becomes agitated and defaces the work. He rips and tears, punches and kicks the art. Then he destroys mirrors. The catharsis over, he rests and begins again to paint. (IMDb)Read More »

Presents highlights of a workshop for young directors conducted by the Polish director Krzysztof Kiewslowski (1941-1996) in Amsterdam during the summer of 1994. The theme of the workshop was the direction of actors. For a fortnight, various groups worked every day on a scene from Ingmar Bergman’s scenario `Scenes from a Marriage’. The sessions with the directors Leif Magnusson and Francesco Ranieri Martinotti were filmed for the documentary, and an interview with Kieslowski was filmed before the sessions. The workshop was entitled `Six Actors in Seach of a Director’. The actors were Reinout Bussemaker, Pamela Knaack, Shaun Lawton, Matthias Maat, Dulcie Smart and Nelleke Zitman. Read More »

A young man and his girlfriend are staying at a camp site near to where a group of other young men are all camped together. The busload of boys leave first but, having packed all their stuff away, the couple pass them on their motorbike – ignoring their catcalls on the way. The couple soon realize that they have dropped their tent somewhere on the road and turn back to look for it – only to find that the busload of boys has stopped and found it first. The boys make a simple proposal – the tent in exchange for the girl. –bob the moo (uk)Read More »

a description by one of IMdB members:
This is such a strange and peculiar film. I had assumed it was a documentary and as such seemed to combine two Kieslowski strains – the meeting and the personal narrative. I kept thinking, as the man who was testifying before a Party Committee which was going to decide whether or not to expel him from the Party. As he tells his story, the curriculum vitae or ‘Life Story’ of the title, I kept thinking this was such a perfect Kieslowski story that he couldn’t have done better if it was scripted.

As it turns out ZYCIORYS was scripted. As far as I’ve been able to discover, the story the man tells was scripted, though based on actual experiences. How precisely or what amount of fictionalizing is involved I do not know. The committee is supposedly real, run by the factory secretary, a man of suspiciously movie star looks. Again, according to the material available, they really got into their task, giving an authentic grilling to the fictional offender.Read More »

a description by one of IMdB members:
With X-Ray I feel Kieslowski beginning to repeat himself. While his investigations of collective decision making at the workplace are superficially similar, he is mining deeper and deeper at a particular face exposing certain anomalies in Democratic Centralism. Here he collects the stories of men in a tubercular sanitarium which repeats, to a lesser effect, the methodology of Bylem zolnierzem (I Was a Soldier) (1970). After everyone has told their story, and are seen in a long shot sitting on a terrace attended by a very pretty nurse, Kieslowski delivers the punchline- a bus descends into a nearby town whose factories fill the valley with smoke containing who knows what health destroying toxins. Its all as simple as one, two, three.Read More »

Quote:
Kieslowski’s thesis film from the State Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Lodz. A portrait of the city of Lodz. Images of buildings that are falling apart are accompanied by optimistic commentary about the city and its industries. @culture.plRead More »