Camera Buff (1979) ***/*****

This isn’t one of my favorite Kieslowski films. While the best works of his I’ve seen are complex, artistic, and kind of existential, this is very realist and political. And at the same time it still manages to be rather melodramatic and on the nose. At the same time, this is Kieslowski. The camera work, funnily enough, is beautiful, and the lead character is well developed. Poland is very adeptly portrayed as the worst place on the entire planet. It’s worth a watch due to the quality crafting and the filmmaker’s pedigree, but it never really went someplace that interested me. I’d much more quickly recommend Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom when it comes to films about a guy getting a camera changing his life. There’s murders and stuff in that one.