FALL 2006
REVELATIONS OF THE HUMAN SOUL: WORKS OF KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI
November 10-19
The history of cinema is rich with celebrated moralists, directors intent on examining the human condition and commenting on its flaws and foibles-among the greatest is Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski, who was plucked from cinema far before his time just ten years ago at age 54. NWFF is honored to present REVELATIONS OF THE HUMAN SOUL: WORKS OF KIESLOWSKI, a retrospective of the lifetime achievement of this great European filmmaker - tracing his evolution from student films to subtly subversive social documentaries to the magic of his first forays into feature filmmaking, CAMERA BUFF and BLIND CHANCE. This series offers a unique opportunity to draw connections between the artist's early film studies and his mature, fully realized portraits.
All films in Polish with English subtitles.
"To call Kieslowski the premier filmmaker of the last two decades seems hardly enough...Without him, the international film scene...is definitely a sadder and lonelier place." -LOS ANGELES TIMES
Attend all the films in REVELATIONS OF THE HUMAN SOUL: WORKS OF KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI with the Series Pass: $50/$35 NWFF members.
NOV 10 Fri at 7, 8:45pm
STUDENT SHORTS AND EARLY DOCUMENTARIES
(Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1966-1971, 76 min.)
Made possible with the assistance of Polish Cultural Institute, Telewizja Polska, Wytwornia Filmow Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych, Filmoteka Narodowa and Polish Home Foundation.
This rare assemblage of student shorts and documentaries includes Kieslowski's first known documentary, THE OFFICE. Shot with a hidden camera in a social security centre, this pointed documentary satirizes officialdom; its striking images of endless rows of bulging files are a paean to aimless bureaucracy. The charming TRAM, about a young man flirting with a girl on a trolley car one night, intriguingly intimates future Kieslowski themes of chance and choice. His last student film, CONCERT OF WISHES, juxtaposes two groups of young people on a holiday weekend and contains nascent Kieslowski tropes and formal techniques. FROM THE CITY OF LODZ provides a fascinating, detailed portrait of the Polish town. The award-winning I WAS A SOLDIER is a moving documentary about blind veterans of the Second World War, and BEFORE THE RALLY (1971, 16 min.) chronicles a man's struggles to acquire and prepare a car for international rally competition.
NOV 11 Sat at 7, 9pm
KIESLOWSKI ON DAILY LIFE
(Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1970-1974, 98 min.)
Made possible with the assistance of Polish Cultural Institute, Telewizja Polska, Wytwornia Filmow Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych, Filmoteka Narodowa and Polish Home Foundation.
This program showcases a director merging the truth-telling capacity of documentary with the narrative richness of fiction. FACTORY and BRICKLAYER offers in sight into the disillusionment of the Stalinist era detailing the difficulties encountered by workers attempting to meet unreasonable quotas and an engrossing portrait of a brick-layer who moves from hard labor to office work and back again. Then in REFRAIN and FIRST LOVE, Kieslowski precedes reality TV by decades as he chronicles the bureaucratic hassles of funeral caretaking and the travails of a young couple in their preparations to become parents.
NOV 12 Sun at 7, 9pm
KIESLOWSKI ON POLITICS AND PROTEST
(Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1973-1975, 87 min.)
Made possible with the assistance of Polish Cultural Institute, Telewizja Polska, Wytwornia Filmow Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych, Filmoteka Narodowa and Polish Home Foundation.
Kieslowski analyzes the psychology of the ill in X-RAY, a film in which patients suffering from tuberculosis speak of their fears and of their wish to return to a normal life. THE UNDERGROUND PASSAGE written in a drunken haze and largely improvised over ten erratic days, is Kieslowski's first narrative film, while in CURRICULUM VITAE, the director combines truth and fiction by filming a real Communist Party tribunal debating a fictional case.
NOV 13 Mon at 7, 8:30pm
FINAL DOCUMENTARY SHORTS
(Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1977-1980, 71 min.)
Made possible with the assistance of Polish Cultural Institute, Telewizja Polska, Wytwornia Filmow Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych, Filmoteka Narodowa and Polish Home Foundation.
HOSPITAL follows orthopedic surgeons on a 32-hour shift. Although instruments fall apart in their hands, the electricity keeps shorting, and the most basic materials remain in short supply, the doctors persevere hour after hour. SEVEN WOMEN OF DIFFERENT AGES shows individual ballerinas at work or in rehearsal each day of the week; however, the ages of the dancers vary from the smallest child taking her first ballet steps to the eldest ballerina, now a ballet teacher. In TALKING HEADS, Kieslowski conducts a quasi-sociological poll in which 79 Poles answer three questions: When were you born? What are you? What would you like most? The director interviews a subject of a different sort in FROM A NIGHT PORTER'S POINT OF VIEW-a factory porter, whose primitive opinions include the desire for public hangings to scare others away from crime.
NOV 14 Tues at 7, 9:30pm
THE SCAR
(Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1976, 35mm, 112 min.)
Made possible with the assistance of Polish Cultural Institute, Telewizja Polska, Wytwornia Filmow Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych, Filmoteka Narodowa and Polish Home Foundation.
In his first theatrically released film, Kieslowski generates a tale of a man, Stefan Bednarz (Franciszek Pieczka), who is chosen by the Communist Party to supervise a construction project in his hometown, where he has not lived for many years. Despite his negative associations with the place, he returns in hopes of building a project that will revitalize the town. Unfortunately, he soon finds that local residents want nothing to do with the project and are more interested in short-term goals. Disillusioned, he decides to resign from his position. The screening is followed by SLATE a fascinating compilation of out-takes from THE SCAR.
NOV 15 Wed at 7, 9:30pm
CAMERA BUFF
(Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1979, 35mm, 112 min.)
Made possible with the assistance of Polish Cultural Institute, Telewizja Polska, Wytwornia Filmow Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych, Filmoteka Narodowa and Polish Home Foundation.
A true benchmark of the Cinema of Moral Anxiety, this is film that launched Kieslowski into the international sphere. Filip, a clerk in a small Polish town, buys an 8mm camera to film the baby his wife is expecting. His bosses take an interest in it and commission him to film the company's 25th anniversary celebrations. When the result wins a prize at an amateur film festival, Filip (Jerzy Stuhr), encouraged by his success, becomes consumed by his newfound passion. But as he develops his creative skills, Filip soon discovers that his devotion to making films has unexpected consequences as his marriage sours, his managers censor him and his films inadvertently lead to the sacking of a colleague.
NOV 16 Thurs at 7, 9:30pm
BLIND CHANCE
(Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1987, 35mm, 122 min.)
Made possible with the assistance of Polish Cultural Institute, Telewizja Polska, Wytwornia Filmow Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych, Filmoteka Narodowa and Polish Home Foundation.
Some call BLIND CHANCE one of Kieslowski's best and most original films. His inclusion of three possible endings to the story still looks fresh today, mainly because it is not used as a gimmick, but as an effective way to explore deeper questions: Is destiny predetermined? What is the role of chance and coincidence in people's lives? Idealistic medical student Witek impulsively decides to go to Warsaw after his father's death; at the train station, his rush for the last train emerges into three alternate scenarios. This simple incident will influence whether he becomes a Communist Party member, an underground dissident or a doctor devoted to his career and wife.
NOV 17 Fri at 7, 9:30pm
NO END
(Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1985, 35mm, 109 min.)
Made possible with the assistance of Polish Cultural Institute, Telewizja Polska, Wytwornia Filmow Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych, Filmoteka Narodowa and Polish Home Foundation.
The last film Kieslowski's made before embarking on his ten-installment Decalogue series, No End is a bleak political allegory disguised as a romantic ghost story. The story depicts the spirit of a young lawyer (Jerzy Radziwilowicz) watching as his beloved widow (Grazyna Szapolowska) struggles to uphold the cause he fought for. Shot during Poland's period of draconian martial law, Kieslowski's austere drama powerfully captures the mood of those dark days.
NOV 18 Sat at 7, 9pm
A SHORT FILM ABOUT KILLING
(Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1988, 35mm, 84 min.)
Made possible with the assistance of Polish Cultural Institute, Telewizja Polska, Wytwornia Filmow Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych, Filmoteka Narodowa and Polish Home Foundation.
An expansion of and a departure from Episode V of the famed European TV series The Decalogue, Kieslowski's feature is a haunting vision of the brutality of modern life and an ethical puzzle pitting random coincidence against irresistible fate. A Short Film About Killing employs a rich arsenal of cinematic imagination to create a persuasive portrait of savagery and redemption.
NOV 19 Sun. at 7, 9pm
A SHORT FILM ABOUT LOVE
(Krzysztof Kieslowski, Poland, 1988, 35mm, 86 min.)
Made possible with the assistance of Polish Cultural Institute, Telewizja Polska, Wytwornia Filmow Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych, Filmoteka Narodowa and Polish Home Foundation.
A film that expands and re-invents of the most powerful episodes in the director's renowned DECALOGUE, in A SHORT FILM ABOUT LOVE Kieslowski takes a cliched situation and gives it several ironic twists. Tomek, an introverted nineteen-year-old virgin, living with his aged mother in a Warsaw flat, becomes obsessed with the woman who lives across the way: Magda, a beautiful woman in her thirties who entertains a steady stream of lovers. Tomek discovers the pleasures of the flesh come at a price in this powerful exploration of sexual obsession as Kieslowski masterfully subverts our expectations with a series of tonal and narrative surprises, turning the film from a familiar study of adolescent erotic obsession into a darkly romantic tale about loneliness and connection.
"Even if you've already seen the [DECALOGUE] segment this film is based on,...the radically different and far more redemptive ending makes LOVE worth seeing separately....[I]t speaks with the tranquility of a parable." -SLANT MAGAZINE
