The entire world has assimilated into western philosophy. Independent sciences and dominance of technology have constituted a time in which there is no room for the elusive or abstract. Our world culture has become uninterested in that which cannot be explained. True as this is in the everyday world, it is equally so in the world of cinema. The average film viewer has been trained to expect an explanation to every question, to be spoon-fed the plot and message of every film. Perhaps this is why Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski has remained relatively unknown. Kieslowski was a man very much interested in metaphysics, his films focus upon the intangible elements of human existence. He is a filmmaker who doesn’t use words to explain the themes of his film, because to do so would cheapen the visceral power of his images.
Kieslowski was born on June 27, 1941 in Warsaw Poland. Thrown into Communist Europe in the midst of the Second World War, Kieslowski entered the world in an unsteady time and place. The turbulent political climate of his home would shape him as a person and inversely as a film director. Originally interested in becoming a stage director, he thought that film would be a good transition into the world of theatre, so he applied to Poland’s famed Lodz Film School. He was rejected three times before being granted admission. In between applications he attended art school. And it was at this time of his life that he went to great lengths to avoid military service, taking on a drastic diet, nearly starving himself to be unfit for duty.
At the beginning of his filmmaking career, Kieslowski has only interested in documentary, at the time considering it to be the purest form of filmmaking. Interested in realism, he attempted to capture the mindset of common poles making the film “Workers ‘71”, a film about working class in Poland at the time, as well as “Station” a film about railway workers. However, while making “Station” he ran into some negative experiences with the Polish government confiscating his film and censoring segments. This led him to rethink his position on documentary. As close as he could come to capturing reality, he could never go the next step, some places stay hidden from a camera and it was always incomplete. He decided to transition into the world of fictitious narrative, coming to the conclusion that through the fakery and contrivance of filmmaking he could capture a piece of the human experience that documentary filmmaking never could. In 1975 he made the film “Personnel”, a fictitious film about a theatre troupe done in documentary fashion. His documentaries and first films would set a tone for the rest of his career, continuing to write and direct over 20 films, including “the Decalogue” a series of short films based upon the Ten Commandments.
The film that gave Kieslowski international recognition was the 1991 film “the Double Life of Veronique”. The film is about doppelgangers. The lives of two women who look identical (both played by Irene Jacob), one, Weronika, lives in Poland while the other, Veronique, lives in France. There are many similarities between the two; both are singers, both are born the same day, and the most prominent is that both women are motherless, left with just their fathers to depend upon. According to an interview with Kieslowski, the film focuses on “The realm of superstitions, fortune-telling, presentiments, intuition, dreams, all this is the inner life of a human being, and all this is the hardest thing to film.” When one of the two dies from heart complications, the Veronique is left feeling an absence in her life and intense grief, and takes steps to change it for unknown reasons. Despite all of the films mystery it is not trying to fool the viewer in anyway. The film is clear, presenting events of the everyday and strange coincidence, leaving you to draw your own conclusions. For example, there is a scene in which Weronika is having some sort of heart attack in the Krakow Square, causing her to fall to the ground. A man in a trench coat walks up to her, and instead of assisting her he opens his jacket to reveal his penis dangling out. This seemingly random moment forces Weronika out of the moment, distracting her from her attack. Moments like this are so open for interpretation. They could have some sort of deeper meaning, or they could also be exactly what they appear to be, it’s left to the viewer to decide.
The final films Kieslowski made were “the Color Trilogy”. The films are “Blue”, “White”, and “Red”. The three films were made back to back. Each of their assigned colors becomes the color theme for it’s respective story. Each is also said to represent the French tricolor liberty, equality, and fraternity. “Blue,” tells the story of a young woman whose child and husband are killed in a car crash. After intense emotional conflict, she tries to move on. She sells her husbands estate, moving into a far section of the city hoping to avoid connection with her former life. However in her attempt to escape she meets her husband’s former mistress and is forced to confront the demons of her past. This ultimately leads to the liberty that its color refers to. The middle film “White” tells the story of a Polish immigrant living in France. His wife wants to divorce him because of his inadequacies in the bedroom. The man, Karol, is a sort of Willy Lowman, unable to catch a break, the film opens with a shot of birds flying above him, and a moment he enjoys until one of them defecates on his coat. After the divorce he looses everything and is forced into a life of poverty. This forces Karol to fight for his life and manhood, a quest to pursue and gain the equality that was missing in his marriage. The final film is “Red”, a story of Valentine, a model finding a wounded dog and nursing it back to health. She eventually discovers the owner, an old retired judge living in the countryside. When she attempts to return the dog he rejects her, he is too preoccupied with watching his neighbors illegally. Valentine begins to try and understand what has jaded this man so. She eventually builds a relationship with him and he opens up, explaining the lost of love of his youth. Through her time with him she helps to change him and he her, giving the sense of fraternity. There is one shot that unites all of the films. It is of a hunched over, elderly person attempting to put a bottle in the recycle. Each character sees this somewhere on their journey, and their reaction varies in each. Roger Ebert put it well stating that Kieslowski’s films are “metaphysical through example, not theory: Kieslowski tells the parable but doesn’t preach the lesson”.
All of these film are minimal, yet intensely complex, the type of films that will most likely require
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