Kieślowski’s Pain

A still from "Krzysztof Kieslowski, Trzy kolory" 

directed by Natalia Koryncka-Gruz

Hard to believe that it has already been 30 years since Kieślowski’s passing.

I think of him as one of the most innovative storytellers in film history. His uniqueness comes, in part, from the goals he sets for his stories. Most films try to answer questions such as: Who did it? What will happen? Why did something happen? His approach—and that of his co-writer, Krzysztof Piesiewicz—seems different. The anecdote is secondary to the question the anecdote is trying to explore.

So when we become engaged in his stories on screen, we are actually participating in his—and Piesiewicz’s—pondering about how the world and human relationships work.

The characters in the Three Colors trilogy, for example, are not simply them. They are us, transported into situations that perhaps we haven’t lived through (yet?), but which nevertheless touch something vital to our existence. The widow in Blue copes with loss. The model and the judge in Red negotiate between empathy and cynicism. The hairdresser in White yearns for his lost self-worth. In The Double Life of Véronique, Kieślowski dissects the mysterious—perhaps metaphysical—connections between people.

There is an extensive interview with Kieślowski, recorded while he was shooting White. It is called Krzysztof Kieślowski: Trzy kolory, directed by Natalia Koryncka-Gruz, and is available on TVP VOD.

Only after hearing a few of his remarks there did it hit me that his films weren’t simply artistic or intellectual exercises. They seem to have been deeply painful explorations of his own personality and of the way he saw himself in the world.

Although I think I remember being jolted, while watching some of his films years ago, by the realization that it was his pain speaking to me through the screen. I had long forgotten that feeling, until watching—or perhaps rewatching—this documentary a few days ago.

I remember a few thoughts from his interview there. My repeating them here may not be verbatim; it’s rather what reached me from the screen and stayed with me after I finished watching the documentary:

Kieślowski says that, for him, the most important thing in storytelling is tone.

That what happens in the stomach is the most important. He means, I think, our emotions—the visceral response to what we experience.

That what matters most is what we don’t share, don’t speak about, what we are ashamed of.

That for him storytelling is an attempt to get to know oneself in the most naked, sensitive, probing way.

That it is terribly important to be able to say, “Yes, I’m weak, but I need to say this.”

That he is losing patience—with everything (that's a very telling admission).

That what matters are the opportunities to say something that people are too shy to tell each other.

That what is needed is simply trust in reality itself.

On the same platform, there is another excellent documentary about Kieślowski as a young boy, when he followed his tuberculosis-stricken father through various sanatoria in Poland, eventually reaching Sokołowsko, now so closely associated with Kieślowski.  The documentary, despite struggling with a shortage of archival material, is also fantastic.

Swimming in Kieslowski

Filming "Blue"

It just so happened that I have started analyzing "Blue", which for a long time I treated as the second best to "Red".  Now reading the script and going scene by scene I am amazed how profound a meditation it is.  How that which originally I perceived as unclear is in fact extremely sophisticated.

While "Red" hits with its precision and strong interconnections obvious to anybody with open eyes, "Blue" is way more subtle.  Perhaps because it deals with even more esoteric and mysterious matters than these in "Red".

The accomplishment is really head spinning.  One of the explanation for this mastery may come from the way Kieslowski worked.  As he explained in an interview while writing each subsequent piece about the upcoming movie he always went for  wholeness.  The wholeness of each "pass", even in editing was something he valued the most.  This means he always thought about structure.   Although it sounds obvious, it is not.  At least not to me, since it's so easy to get lost in particular sub themes of a story.

For the ability of thinking "wholeness" all the time one has to have a precise and poetic mind. Otherwise it just won't work.

Genova - moving forward

“Genova” directed by Michael Winterbottom,
written by Winterbottom and Laurence Coriat

Contrary to my “Metropolis” complains about the lack of narrative progress the field evolves and it happens fast.

For example “Genova” starring Colin Firth and great Catherine Keener, the film about "moving forward", which also moves forward the narrative craft. To me "Genova" effectively reworks “Three colors: Blue.” Strange that nobody mentions it. I hope I am not going nuts! Of course I do not know if Winterbottom consciously enters into the dialog with Kieślowski. Yet, even if directing this film is more instinctual and less cerebral, we the viewers are entitled to argue and point out such (possible) connections.

The first scene is the most obvious. A car crash in both films opens the story. In “Genova” the grieving wife from “Blue” is replaced by the grieving dad and two daughters. In what follows, thematic, sequential, psychological parallels to the Kieślowski masterpiece abound.

Stylistically both films are hugely different, which is as intriguing as it is encouraging. That’s why many directorial aspects of “Genova” (and “Blue”) are worth studying.

I will add “Genova” to the list of analyzed films during my upcoming seminars (“Blue” is already there.) You need to be a SWPS student to attend. Unless I return to offering independent workshops, which may happen. So stay tuned!

The alchemical origin of “Three Colors: Red”

Krzysztof Kieślowski, Jean Louis Trintignant, Irene Jacob on the set.
This Miramax picture is from imdb.

Krzysztof Zanussi during a public scriptwriting master class lecture told a story to illustrate the need for a filmmaker to study reality and to transmute the findings.

After the collapse of Communism a former secret agent approached Zanussi seeking help in finding a job. The agent thought of Zanussi because the director for years was his professional assignment. The agent spied on the filmmaker, listening to his phone conversations and reading his correspondence. In the agent’s mind a relationship was formed.

Zanussi offered him a few days a week yard work (nice touch, isn’t it?) That was refused. The director (realizing the narrative potential of the agent’s story or just seeking others who could help the man) called Andrzej Wajda, who wasn’t at that time in Warsaw.

So Zanussi called Krzysztof Kieślowski, who met the agent and spoke with him for a long time. That’s how the telephone spying on his neighbors judge in “Red” was born.

This reminds me of what Bill Viola said about his method of work. He used the expression “an almost alchemical process” in which he takes “an impulse which could be almost anything” (if I remember it well) and then with his craft turns it into “gold.”

Granted, Zanussi’s and Kieslowski’s films are anecdote based while Viola’s work is closer to painting but the rule remains the same: take in, extract the essence, stamp with your own, rearrange, return out.