Into the soul of man: the cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski
The artistic and commercial successes of the trilogy Three Colors: Blue, White, Red ranked Polish film director Krzysztof Kieslowski among the most recognized artists of world cinema.
The Trilogy consists of three visually striking films about how French Revolution ideals function in the lives of contemporary people. This series turned out to be an intriguing experiment in the 1990s. Kieslowski’s previous movie The Double Life of Veronique was seen by many critics as a new sign of hope for the rise of new forms of artistic expression in European cinema. Like Fyodor Dostoevsky or Albert Camus, Krzysztof Kieslowski profoundly explored the human condition of his time. Like Joseph Conrad, he penetrated the complexity of the human soul and asked important questions about the meaning of life. He was a master of film mystery by using evocative images and atmospheric music to put what was invisible on the screen. Krzysztof Kieslowski brought a new dimension of metaphysics to popular culture.
Blind Chance
An all-out scream of “no” expressing the extreme terror of a young man before his death in an airplane crash opens Blind Chance (1981). In this psychological drama, Kieslowski uses a unique narrative strategy to discuss the roles of destiny and choices in human life. Before the main plot starts, the viewers follow 12 short scenes, which might be a retrospection of the life of Witek, a 21-year-old student of medicine. This sequence shows images referring to Witek’s childhood, the relationship with his father, time studying and memories of his first love. The pivotal scene of the movie is an incident at the Lodz train station from where Kieslowski starts his reflection on the roles of fate and choice in life, asking the intriguing question “what if…”. Whether Witek is able to jump onto a moving train or not determines his whole future.
The film depicts three outcomes of Witek’s chase, which determines his three versions of his life, three different social attitudes, and three approaches to religion and politics during a time of big changes in Poland. Blind Chance is a movie that is on the very edge of two aesthetics: social drama and philosophical parable. Starting with this movie, Kieslowski’s work visibly diverges from socially involved cinema (Personnel, The Scar, Camera Buff ) into films incorporating complex philosophical ideas.
“Although starting as a documentary filmmaker in a communist state where filmmakers were faced with political (but as he pointed out, not economic) censorship, Kieslowski was always more interested in the interior lives of his subjects, not just their social circumstances, and he figured out ways of revealing those interiors in his films that weren’t reductive or schematic,” claims Steven Woodward, professor of film and literature at Bishop’s University in Quebec, editor of the book After Kieslowski: The Legacy of Krzysztof Kieslowski and co-editor of Kieslowski: Interviews.
No End
Having a solid documentary background, Krzysztof Kieslowski was an acute observer, flawlessly decoding social phenomena and human behaviors at the end of the millennium. His late movies correspond with zeitgeist and people’s growing need for new spirituality at a time of common secularization. As film scholar Paul Coates has noted, Kieslowski’s rise to international prominence with his later work coincided with the rise of the new American spirituality.
However, the first explicit references to the spiritual sphere of human life in the filmography of Krzysztof Kieslowski appear in the psychological drama No End (1984). In this intimate story, the audience meets Ula, a grieving young widow who is trying to find a reason for her further life. However, the whole narrative is told from points-of-view of her dead husband, in No End, Kieslowski for the first time gives insight to a woman’s emotions and psyche. The film, received negatively by Polish critics, is about the interpenetration of the worlds of the living and the dead. Today, with the benefit of hindsight, we can perceive how much Kieslowski predicted viewers’ emotional needs by exploring a subject that would be the focus of Hollywood’s top directors in the following decade.
The Decalogue
The Decalogue (1988), a drama series originally produced for Polish television was the turning point in the European career of Krzysztof Kieslowski. The cinematic versions of some episodes won numerous international awards including prizes at the Cannes Film Festival and the European Film Award, and they positioned Kieslowski among the most interesting European film directors. Today, the series inspired by the Ten Commandments has reached cult status. The references to its special storytelling technique, dubbed “network narratives” presenting multiple protagonists whose paths crossed in a variety of unexpected ways, can be noticed in many Hollywood productions and TV shows.
The plot of The Decalogue is set in one large housing project in 1980s Warsaw. In the environment of tiny flats in overwhelming, depressing tenement blocks, viewers follow protagonists who must face critical situations in their lives.
In those moments, the director of The Decalogue proceeds to demystify modern people’s hidden fears and obsessions. Each episode is dedicated to a separated story. In The Decalogue, there is a rich variety of characters, people’s dramas and moral dilemmas confronted with the Ten Commandments.
Only one figure that appears throughout the whole series is mysterious, silent, angel-like character, who might be regarded as the Angel of Fate. He appears in decisive moments in the protagonists’ lives, observing the ongoing drama but never intervening. The Decalogue’s enigmatic character, who is often compared to the angels in Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire (1987), adds a metaphysical dimension to presenting stories.
Exploring complicated interpersonal relations and various entanglements of human fate, Kieslowski does not avoid touching complex subjects like betrayal, incest, murder, capital punishment, blame and redemption.
“Kieslowski did not champion the sovereignty of the individual but insisted on our ethical and spiritual interdependence. The Decalogue, with its protagonists who all live in one apartment complex and cross paths with each other, is built entirely around this question of our interdependence, both in the individual episodes and in the relationship between episodes,” states Steven Woodward, a scholar of film and literature.
“Kieslowski’s Decalogue is a timeless work. It includes the truth which is relevant to life, regardless of the changing conditions and reference points,” claims Krzysztof Zanussi, famous Polish film director, friend of Krzysztof Kieslowski and producer of his movies.
The Double life of Veronique
The Double Life of Véronique (1991) was the first international production of Kieslowski and simultaneously the most poetic of his whole output. The plot of this “metaphysical thriller” introduces viewers to the intriguing world of film illusion based on visual associations and mysteries surrounding the world of alternative realities. The Polish-French co-production presents a story about doppelgängers. Weronica and Véronique, two young women from Poland and France, respectively, share the same age, look, and profession. Their separate life paths mysteriously cross in one moment and place in an outstanding sequence set in the Krakow Main Market Square photographed by Slawomir Idziak, an acclaimed Polish film operator.
The Double Life of Veronique received high critical acclaim in Europe and in the United States. It won many awards including three awards at Cannes: the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, the FIPRESCI Prize for Kieslowski, and the Prize for Best Actress for Irene Jacob. In that time of escalating commercial cinema with glitzy entertainment, Kieslowski’s film seemed to be a kind of true discovery. His movie brought a new dimension of metaphysics to cinema by offering, on the one hand, an intriguing story including doubleness, complex philosophical issues dealing with alternative realities and the creation of art. On the other hand, The Double Life of Veronique is a perfect film work from the production side. Slawomir Idziak’s unique style of cinematography, highlighted by the use of yellow and golden filters, adds to the movie’s psychological depth. The music of Zbigniew Preisner deeply affects the emotions of viewers, carries the narration of the movie and suggests its hidden meanings and spiritual depth. The haunting performance of Weronika during a concert in the Krakow Philharmonic is an absolutely unforgettable moment, true film poetry encompassed in a wonderful stream of music and pictures.
The critics praised Kieslowski’s directorial technique and skills in building dramaturgy that caters symbols and mysterious signs to our subconscious fears and needs. “The Polish director appears as a master of mystery, an artist of the invisible,” wrote a journalist from Le Nouvel Observateur.
“Krzysztof Kieslowski was an exceptional artist with a long apprenticeship in his profession. Before he devoted his life to features, he had honed his craft making short films and documentaries. This experience allowed him to produce outstanding movies, which touched mainly upon the spiritual lives of his protagonists. In Kieslowski’s films, the narrative always contains a hidden message, the reason for the story he tells us,” says cinematographer Slawomir Idziak.
Trilogy
Three colors. Three films. Three portraits of femininity. In his final achievement, Kieslowski observes the lives of contemporary people through the perspective of French Revolution ideals. In each of these stories, sophisticated visual language strongly affects the audience’s emotions. The films’ key colors highlight each main theme and set the tone of the narration.
In Kieslowski’s Trilogy, the female protagonists are ambiguous, multi-dimensional and intriguing figures. Depicting their mental states, oversensitivity and emotionality opens the ground for new cinematic language.
“Kieslowski was aware of the practically unlimited possibilities that producing films had presented, but simultaneously he was also conscious that breaching certain boundaries would cut his ties with the audience. Kieslowski never lost the emotional bonds with his viewers, which proved to be a particularly difficult task in Blue,” claims Slawomir Idziak, film operator of approximately 70 films, nominated for an Oscar for his work on Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down (2001).
The first part of the Trilogy tells the story of Julie (Juliette Binoche) , who is struggling after the death of her daughter and husband, a famous French composer, in a car accident. Her mourning deepens her isolation, which seems to be a symbol of absolute freedom. An unexpected twist in her life brings a TV-program revealing a long-held secret of her husband.
Witnessing Julie’s return to life, viewers are exposed to visual and sound effects that suggestively create mind-screen narration. Mirror reflections, the changes of color tones, flashes of blue, sudden blackouts accompanying the loud music create landscapes of the protagonist’s emotions, which are changing gradually as she rebuilds her life anew by showing generosity and affection towards others.
In the Trilogy, everyday situations and subjects gain new significance. Here, deeply subjective moments and images remain narrative-motivated and simultaneously are marvelously open-ended (like the sugar cube dissolving in coffee).
Each of these stories presented in the Trilogy has many dimensions. Three Colors: White (1994), a subversive comedy about a Polish- French marriage crisis, can be seen as a greater metaphor for the relations between Poland and the West.
In Red (1994), Kieslowski continues the discourse on the lack of real communication between people. Red begins with the chance encounter of Valentine, a young student and part-time fashion model with a retired judge who is obsessed with illegally eavesdropping on his neighbors (and is regarded as the alter ego of Kieslowski). In the story of an evolving special friendship between two superficially different characters (played by Irene Jacob and Jean-Louis Trintignant), Polish director provides an analysis of the situation of contemporary people and their difficulties with interpersonal communication. Modern technology, telephone conversations and letters replace human contact, which deepens the loneliness of today’s humans. In Kieslowski’s last movie, narration is again based on the “what if” structure and mystifying games of coincidence and destiny.
In so far as the Trilogy starts with the sphere of death, the ending of its last part provides a triumph of life and the miraculous power of love. The meaning of life depends on establishing strong relations with other people. The quality of these relationships might result in concrete moral consequences.
“ Kieslowski’s last completed project, the Three Colours trilogy, was squarely in the realm of European art-house traditions, and yet Kieslowski arrived there with an outsider’s perspective, fusing together disparate parts of filmic history, like the combination of Godard’s Contempt and Chaplin’s City Lights in Three Colours: White,” claims Steven Woodward from Bishop’s University in Canada. “I think he revivified art-film practices precisely because they were new to him when he ‘crossed over’ from Poland to France with The Double Life of Veronique,”, adds Woodward.
The last part of the Trilogy, which is also considered the most sophisticated, received numerous film awards and three Oscars nominations among others
for Best Director and Best Writing for Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesewicz (Piesiewicz was credited as co-scriptwriter on all of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s projects since 1984).
Kieslowski’s ‘Afterlife’
Almost 20 years after Kieslowski’s death, his cinema is of deep relevance to other filmmakers and audiences around the world.
There are many filmmakers who are clearly carrying on Kieslowski’s mode of filmmaking since they had a direct connection with him or were working from his and his longtime collaborator and co-writer Krzysztof Piesiewicz’s ideas and screenplays. Among these film directors are Jerzy Stuhr (who shot The Big Animal in Poland), Tom Tykwer (Heaven) and Danis Tanović (Hell). Heaven and Hell are parts of a new trilogy based on a script originally drafted by Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz.
Former Krzysztof Kieslowski’s assistant directors Julie Bertucelli and Emmanual Finkiel bear some stylistic and thematic imprints from Kieslowski in their own films.
There are also filmmakers exploring some of the same themes and issues (like intersecting paths, games of coincidence and destiny) who might be considered as being in dialogue with Kieslowski. Among these directors are: Wim Wenders, Abbas Kiarostami, Jean-Pierre Jeunet in Amelie, Michael Haneke in Code Unknown, Alejandro González Iñárritu in 21 Grams.
Obvious influences from Kieslowski’s Blind Chance are noticed in Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run and Peter Howitt’s Sliding Doors.
“Because of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s interest in the question of interdependence and the related issue of a secular spirituality , he developed the “network narrative” structure in many of his projects, beginning with Blind Chance and then elaborating this in The Decalogue, The Double Life of Veronique and Three Colors. Premium cable channels (and then the broadcast networks, following suit) have found the network narrative a very productive format that’s deeply appealing to educated viewers who want more complex characters and narratives, ensemble casts, as well as a degree of spirituality, so there’s a very practical reason for his continuing influence on that terrain,” claims Steven Woodward, a scholar of film and literature. “I think Kieslowski’s influence is both diffuse and pervasive, and that it’s more easily noted particularly in television ,(from Six Feet Under through Lost to Orange Is the New Black),” adds Woodward.
Krzysztof Kieslowski remains The Great Presence in contemporary cinema.
Originally published at www.contributoria.com.
