Kaleidoscopic Kieslowski
Krzysztof Kieslowski. The name which is difficult to pronounce but the personality which taught complex human emotions like Love, hate, anger, hatred, innocence, selfishness, longing and above all who taught the values of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity (brotherhood) to the human kind through his films Three Colours Trilogy. Three colours: Blue, Three colours: White and Three colours: Red. These three films stand out as the best Trilogy ever made according to many film reviewers as well as film magazines around the world.
Blue, White and Red are the colours of the French Flag in left to right order, and the story of each film is loosely based on one of the three political ideals in the motto of the French Republic: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. The trilogy is somewhat interpreted respectively as anti-tragedy, an anti-comedy and an anti-romance.
Krzysztof Kieslowski was a polish film director and screen writer. He is known internationally for Dekalog(1989), The Double Life of Veronique(1991) and the Three Colours Trilogy (1993–1994). Kieslowski received numerous awards during his career at various international film festivals like Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Golden lion and he also received Academy Award(Oscars) nominations for Best Director and Best Writing. My personal view is that he should have been awarded with Academy Award Best Director for Three Colours Trilogy. The stand alone parts of his films apart from direction and script is the soundtrack of the films by Zbigniew Priesner and cinematography which convey the story so beautifully that audience are left with deep thoughts about these films. To put it more aptly. The collaboration between Director Krzysztof Kieslowski & Composer Zbigniew Priesner:
“Their Film work is characterized by musical moments which illuminate the story & open up channels of interpretation between the work & the audience.”
These are cinematic narratives as Stanley Kubrick once said of Kieslowski’s “The Dekalog" which dramatise ideas, rather than merely talk about them. Priesner’s music is central to that process. The different shades/sounds of music in these films perfectly convey the meaning of Rumi’s quote:
“Listen to silence. It has so much to say.”
These silent scenes with the music in the background speak alot to the audience more than the dialogues in these films. Whether it is “Song for the Unification of Europe” from Three Colours: Blue, Van Den Budenmayer’s choir from The Double Life of Veronique, The whole soundtrack of Dekalog or the music at the end of “A Short Film about Love" when Magda sees herself in Tomek’s telescope. If there is one word to describe the soundtracks of these movies, it is “Soul hunting”.
Coming to the Connections & Patterns in Three Colours Trilogy. A symbol common to the three films is that of an underlying link or thing that keeps the protagonist linked to their past. In the case of Blue, it is the lamp of Blue beads, and a symbol seen throughout the film in the TV of people falling (doing either sky diving or bungee jumping). In the case of White the item that links Karol to his past is a 2 Franc coin & a plaster bust of Marianne that he steals from an antique shop in Paris. In the case of Red the judge never closes or locks his doors & his fountain pen, which stops working at a crucial point in the story.
Another recurring image related to the spirit of the film is that of elderly people recycling bottles. In Blue, an old woman in Paris is recycling bottles & Julie does not notice her(in the spirit of freedom), in White, an old man also in Paris is trying to recycle a bottle but cannot reach the container & Karol looks at him with a sinister grin(in the spirit of equality) and in Red an old woman cannot reach the hole of the container & Valentine helps her(in the spirit of fraternity).
The Double Life of Veronique which explores the themes of identity, love & human intuition through the characters of Weronika a polish choir soprano, and her double, Veronique, a French music teacher. The two women do not know eachother & yet they share a mysterious & emotional bond that transcends language and geography which reminds me of a dialogue of Veronique from the same film:
“All my life I’ve felt I was in 2 places at the same time. Here and somewhere else.”
The Double Life of Veronique reminded me of those incidents which I dream & the same dreams happen as true incidents when I feel that I have been a part of the incidents somewhere else.
My personal favourite of Kieslowski’s films is an expanded film version of Dekalog: Six, part of Kieslowski’s 1988 polish language ten-part television series Dekalog. The film is set in Warsaw. To summarise the plot of the film: After spying on the woman through a telescope, the man meets & declares his love for this woman who long ago gave up on believing love. She responds to his innocence by initiating him on the basic fact of life that there is no love, only intimacy.
To sum up Kieslowski’s work: Kieslowski remains one of Europe’s most influential directors, his works included in the study of film classes at universities throughout the world.
In an interview given at Oxford University in 1995, Kieslowski said:
It comes from a deep-rooted conviction that if there is anything worthwhile doing for the sake of culture, then it is touching on subject matters & situations which link people, and not those that divide people. There are too many things in the world which divide people such as religion, politics, history & nationalism. If culture is capable of anything, then it is finding that which unites us all. And there are so many things which unite people. It doesn’t matter who you are or who I am, if your tooth aches or mine, it’s still the same pain. Feelings are what link people together, because the word 'Love' has the same meaning for everybody or 'Fear’, or 'Suffering’. We all fear the same way & the same things. And we all love in the same way. That’s why I tell about these things, because in all other things I immediately find division.
American filmmaker Stanley Kubrick’s words give a fitting tribute to Krzysztof Kieslowski:
“ I am always reluctant to single out some particular feature of the work of a major filmmaker because it tends inevitably to simplify & reduce the work. But in this book of screenplays by Krzysztof Kieslowski & his co-author, Krzysztof Piesiewicz, it should not be out of place to observe that they have the very rare ability to dramatize their ideas rather than just talking about them. By making their points through the dramatic action of the story they gain the added power of allowing the audience to discover what’s really going on rather than being told. They do this with such dazzling skill, you never see the ideas coming & don’t realise until much later how profoundly they have reached your heart".
To describe the personality of Krzysztof Kieslowski I would like to end with this quote: “I like deep thinkers. I don’t like to have normal conversations with people. I love learning about what makes them who they are. Their thoughts. Views. Who is important to them. What is important to them. Let me pick your brain”.
