Krzysztof Kieślowski

[MichaelB]

Refrain (Refren, 1972)

At less than ten minutes, this was the shortest of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s professional films to date, and returns to the territory of his 1966 film-school project Office (which was never intended for public consumption and which wouldn’t be commercially released for decades) in that it’s a depiction of the way that bureaucracy can render even the most heart-rending human stories into dry facts and figures, albeit not without a certain amount of ghoulish humour along the way (“No offence, sir, but at an undertaker’s establishment we sincerely hope not to see you again”).

It’s set in a municipal funeral home, and the opening shots of passports and identity cards being stripped of key features (such as the photograph) set the tone perfectly, as do the meticulous breakdowns of exactly where each złoty goes when totting up the final bill (“Transport is 8 złotys per kilometre, but we only charge one way”), the patient explanation of why cloth-covered sawdust makes a perfectly good substitute for a purpose-designed, but much more expensive headrest, or deadpan responses to off-the-wall enquiries (“We don’t sell graves to the living - only with a death certificate directly prior to the funeral. True, in the past one could buy oneself a grave, or build oneself a tomb or a monument - but not any more”). Meanwhile, as regular glances out of the window attest, life goes on as people wander along the street without a care in the world.

Unlike Office, the visual focus here is almost exclusively on the faces of the various funeral home employees - we barely see or hear their clients, presumably out of tact. With few exceptions, they seem a remarkably good-natured bunch, although given their profession and indeed the widespread Polish propensity towards gallows humour, that’s perhaps not surprising. Tellingly, at the very end, a baby is born - and immediately tagged with its own identification number, which it will need up to the very end of its life. Welcome to the system.

[posto]

Ran across this mega-set: Krzysztof Kieślowski: Antologia filmowa Wydanie Kolekcjonerskie
36 DVD's (too bad these are not blus)- pretty much almost everything by Kieslowski.
Hefty price - Gandalf is the cheapest I found - they accept Paypal and ship to US.
I haven't used Gandalf before - I don't know how reliable are they.

[MichaelB]

Going from the typeface and the publisher, I think this is a sequel to last year's even bigger Andrzej Wajda box - in which case the discs are likely to be 100% English-friendly (extras and all), but the hefty book will be exclusively in Polish.

Although unlike the Wajda box, I'm not sure this is really worth the investment unless you don't have much of this stuff already. All of Kieślowski's theatrical fiction features bar Camera Buff are already available on English-friendly Blu-ray, and virtually all the non-fiction work is very easy to get hold of on DVD, most of it in the recent restorations. Going down the list, the only three titles that I don't already have English-friendly commercial DVD releases of are Between Wrocław and Zielona Góra, The Principles of Safety and Hygiene in a Copper Mine and Legenda. Also, most of the extras have already appeared on British and American releases.

I daresay there's a possibility that the likes of First Love, Personnel and The Calm have been restored since the Arrow Blu-ray of Dekalog was put together (I know The Calm has been at least), so there'll be a slight quality bump there, but a fair number of these discs will be a downgrade of what I already have.

[dda1996a]

Where were pre Dekalog work released on Blu Ray except for Blind Chance?

[MichaelB]

Poland. I have English-subtitled copies of The Scar, Blind Chance, No End and both the Short Films (Killing and Love).

Throw in this DVD box set of the bulk of the documentaries (this set, unlike the older PWA edition, consists of new restorations), the Artificial Eye or Criterion editions of the four late features and Arrow's Dekalog box (for the five TV movies), and you'll end up with the overwhelming majority of the contents of the new box (including many of the extras), much of it on Blu-ray, for a fair bit less money.

[dda1996a]

What's the PQ, and I see there are no extras?

[Pepsi]

Poland. I have English-subtitled copies of The Scar, Blind Chance, No End and both the Short Films (Killing and Love).

I bought the LOVE in SteelBook. Very odd. Total black steelbook without any pictures or text, not even on the spine. Only a slipcover with the information, and artwork.

[dadaistnun]

I watched No End for the first time in 20+ years today. This was the third Kieslowski I saw, after seeing Blue in its theatrical release, and Veronique soon afterwards. I remember watching it alone on Christmas, appropriate I suppose, since the film takes place at that time of year (the car that has the collision with a bus has a Christmas tree tied to the roof). Maybe the circumstances of that viewing were not ideal, as I remember thinking it was very good, albeit incredibly bleak, and I didn’t feel the need to revisit it, even after catching up with Dekalog and its partner films. I bought the six Kino discs when they came out, but No End was the only one of the bunch I didn’t watch.

Revisiting it now, it feels like as major a work for Kieslowski as the more regularly feted films. Considering it essentially ushers in the last decade of his career, with this being the first film made with both Piesiewicz and Preisner, I’m a little surprised it’s not more widely discussed. Despite the nominal similarities to Blue, which this often is called a dry run/preliminary version of, for me it occupies territory closer to The Calm, Blind Chance, and A Short Film About Killing in its merging of the political and the personal, and how it can be well nigh impossible to separate the two, as well as a look at how hard it is to stay true to an ideal when outside forces seem to necessitate an alternate path. The trial ends about as well as can be expected, but everyone left in the courtroom after the verdict looks defeated.

Regarding the ending:

Spoiler

How are we to read Ulla’s ultimate decision? There are no simple answers of course, especially in the well of grief one finds oneself in after unexpectedly losing a loved one. Is this her way of staying true to Anton after seeing where compromise got her husband’s client? A realization that she might not be strong enough to see her son through an unknowable amount of time under martial rule, and that he might be better off with his paternal grandmother who presumably helped raise her son, his father, to fight more strongly for what is right than even the father’s mentor (played by the wonderful Aleksander Bardini) is able or willing to do?

Jacek Petrycki’s cinematography is excellent, capturing the coldness of the homes we see and yet also delivering great beauty in the scenes at the church, particularly the shots of Grazyna Szapołowska (who is as good here as she is in A Short Film About Love) lighting the candles and looking directly into the camera. I also loved the tracking shot that follows her up the stairwell when she returns to the hypnotherapist. Given how many times he worked with Kieslowski, I’m surprised Petrycki didn’t work on Dekalog.

Really wish Preisner’s score was available. Could really go for a second disc of Dekalog/Short Film cues, too.

[dda1996a]

Don't forget Camera Buff, which is not only one of his best, but shares those same themes you mentioned as the other four films.

[dadaistnun]

Krzysztof Kieślowski Archives online

Even if you can't read Polish, there's a lot of great photographic items to check out, including some adorable shots of Kieślowski & his wife, and extensive on-set photos from Three Colors.

[Stefan Andersson]

An article on Decalogue VI, including this interesting statement: "the Third Commandment is omitted in the series, whereas the Tenth is split into two films".
https://culture.pl/en/work/a-short-film ... kieslowski

Scroll down for more articles on Kieslowski films.

[The Pachyderminator]

An article on Decalogue VI, including this interesting statement: "the Third Commandment is omitted in the series, whereas the Tenth is split into two films".
https://culture.pl/en/work/a-short-film ... kieslowski

Not exactly. There are multiple ways of enumerating the Ten Commandments. Decalogue, naturally enough for a Polish film, follows the one that's commonly used by Catholics. There's identifiably a one-to-one correspondence between the ten episodes and the commandments in the Catholic list, though for a few of the episodes the connection is a little ambiguous.

[Stefan Andersson]

An article on Decalogue VI, including this interesting statement: "the Third Commandment is omitted in the series, whereas the Tenth is split into two films".
https://culture.pl/en/work/a-short-film ... kieslowski

Not exactly. There are multiple ways of enumerating the Ten Commandments. Decalogue, naturally enough for a Polish film, follows the one that's commonly used by Catholics. There's identifiably a one-to-one correspondence between the ten episodes and the commandments in the Catholic list, though for a few of the episodes the connection is a little ambiguous.

Thank you very much for the link and your comment! Very interesting!

[Constable]

I just watched Blue and having read through some reviews and comments I noticed a few people mention that the film hints at Julie (Binoche's character) possibly being the composer of the music, not her husband and I have to say I totally missed this.

Where does this happen in the film? I read someone mention that the journalist at the beginning asks Julie something like whether she wrote her husband's music. Are there other moments as well?

[JSC]

Towards the end of the film.

Spoiler

When Olivier phones Julie and tells her that he will finish the Concerto, because otherwise "everyone will have to know." Maybe it comes across that he might be talking about Julie's husband's affair, but I always took it to mean that she was the real composer. There's also the earlier scene when Julie is standing before the piano reading the score. When the notation finishes and we just see an empty staff, we continue to hear a melody, possibly implying her own continuation of it.

As well as implying the state of Julie's character at specific moments, I also see the music as something that she is actively creating or thinking
through at various points.

Spoiler

For example the scene when she is locked out of her apartment and is sitting on the staircase and we hear some low
rumblings of the score.

[Constable]

Towards the end of the film.

Spoiler

When Olivier phones Julie and tells her that he will finish the Concerto, because otherwise "everyone will have to know." Maybe it comes across that he might be talking about Julie's husband's affair, but I always took it to mean that she was the real composer. There's also the earlier scene when Julie is standing before the piano reading the score. When the notation finishes and we just see an empty staff, we continue to hear a melody, possibly implying her own continuation of it.

Interesting, I interpreted the conversation with Olivier differently.

Spoiler

He says to her that the music can be his, a little heavy and awkward, but his, or it can be hers, but then everyone would have to know. And this is preceded by a scene in which they are composing together and she kind of pushes him around and dominates him into accepting her alterations of what he'd composed, so what I took his remarks to mean is either but out and let me finish the piece my way, or you can write it, but then we'll put your name on it, not mine.

So in this interpretation there is no implication that she was the original composer.

[TMDaines]

Going from the typeface and the publisher, I think this is a sequel to last year's even bigger Andrzej Wajda box - in which case the discs are likely to be 100% English-friendly (extras and all), but the hefty book will be exclusively in Polish.

Although unlike the Wajda box, I'm not sure this is really worth the investment unless you don't have much of this stuff already. All of Kieślowski's theatrical fiction features bar Camera Buff are already available on English-friendly Blu-ray, and virtually all the non-fiction work is very easy to get hold of on DVD, most of it in the recent restorations. Going down the list, the only three titles that I don't already have English-friendly commercial DVD releases of are Between Wrocław and Zielona Góra, The Principles of Safety and Hygiene in a Copper Mine and Legenda. Also, most of the extras have already appeared on British and American releases.

I daresay there's a possibility that the likes of First Love, Personnel and The Calm have been restored since the Arrow Blu-ray of Dekalog was put together (I know The Calm has been at least), so there'll be a slight quality bump there, but a fair number of these discs will be a downgrade of what I already have.

Out of interest, where did you pick up along the way The Photograph (Zdjęcie 1968), Gospodarze (1972) and Seven Days a Week (Siedem dni tygodniu 1988)

I have the Arrow Academy Decalogue and Cinema of Conflict sets, Criterion's Three Colors, AE's A Short Film About Love/Killing and Veronique Blu-rays, as well as the Polish documentary DVD set, but am still missing a the three you mention and these others.

[MichaelB]

The Photograph is on YouTube, and there are fansubs floating around. You already effectively have Gospodarze, because that's just a massively censored version of Workers '71 (included in the WFD box) in a way that was disowned by Kieślowski and co-director Tomasz Zygadło. I don't know about Seven Days a Week.

[AxeYou]

My latest list of what's available on DVD in English-friendly copies, based on the filmography appended to Culture.pl's admirably thorough overview of his work:

1966 - The Tram (Tramwaj, 5 mins, IMDB)

• • Included in Artificial Eye's A Short Film About Love, Region 2 PAL (review: The Digital Fix)
  …

Michael, any chance you’d be kind enough to update this list? Have there been any new non-feature film releases since 2017, besides what’s available on the bonus disc on Curzon’s Three Colours UHD?

Thanks!

Someone who has the Curzon said that most of the short films on the bonus disc have been restored and gave a rundown on the masters used for each sort:

THE OFFICE (1966) - 4K Restoration - 2.0 PCM
THE TRAM (1966) - 4K Restoration - silent
CONCERT OF REQUESTS (1967) - 4K Restoration - 2.0 PCM
I WAS A SOLDIER (1971) - solid upscale - 5.1 DTS HD
FACTORY (1971) - 4K Restoration - 5.1 DTS HD
HOSPITAL (1977) - 4K Restoration - 5.1 DTS HD
SEVEN WOMEN OF DIFFERENT AGES (1978) - older HD or 2K Master, soft DNR - 5.1 DTS HD
FROM A NIGHT PORTER'S POINT OF VIEW (1979) - new 4K master, moderate DNR - 5.1 DTS HD
RAILWAY STATION (1980) - 4K Restoration - 5.1 DTS HD
TALKING HEADS (1980) 4K Restoration - 5.1 DTS HD

THE MUSICIANS (1958) BY KAZIMIERZ KARABASZ - older master, moderate to stronger DNR - 5.1 DTS HD
THE FACE (1966) BY PIOTR STUDZIŃSKI | WITH KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI - new 4K master, unrestored scan - 2.0 PCM

[MichaelB]

Last summer, Michał Oleszczyk and I recorded a 55-minute podcast discussion about Camera Buff during a residence at the Kieślowski Archive in Sokołowsko, which was published by the Polish Cultural Institute in New York (which originally commissioned it) to mark what would have been Kieślowski's 83rd birthday - and I finally found out about it today, in the immediate wake of the sad (albeit not unexpected) death of its star Jerzy Stuhr.