A Short Film About Love review

Krzysztof Kieslowski's A Short Film About Love opens with a close up of hands, wrists bandaged. Another hand attempts to caress them but they in turn are stopped by a third party. The scene's significance will become apparent later. The film proper begins: we witness 19-year-old Tomek (Olaf Lubaszenko) break into what appears to be a school and steal a small telescope. He sets the small scope up in the bedroom he rents from a friend's mother and spies on Magda (Grazyna Szapolowska), an artist living in an apartment on the opposite side of the courtyard.

Tomek is clearly obsessed with Magda. An employee of the post office, he leaves her forged pick-up notices just so that he can see her up close. He takes a second job an a milk deliveryman for the same reason; he hides her empty bottles so that he can have a reason to know at her door early in the morning. He even tries to sabotage her romantic liaisons, calling in a false gas leak just as she and her lover are getting undressed.

(Peeping Tom)ek eventually confesses his feelings (and his mischief) to Magda. She is understandably very angry, but at the same time intrigued by this younger man an his romanticized ideals, however misplaced they may be. Magda agrees to go out on a date of sorts with Tomek. They go back to her place afterwards where he humiliates himself with his sexual inexperience. Tomek storms off in embarrassment and Magda is ashamed of the casual emotional cruelty she has shown him. Kieslowski's love story begins to change direction in tragic, moving, and subtly unexpected ways.

Despite having the trappings of a suspense film, with its themes of voyeurism and thwarted affections, this truly is a love story, albeit an odd one. Tomek's feelings for Magda may be naive, and he may objectify her, but his love is genuine in its innocent, idealistic way. His drastic actions when things don't immediately work out as he had hoped may be the actions of a lovesick young man, but it is precisely for that reason that Magda's feelings begin to change from a condescending pity to something more heartfelt. He reminds her that there is still a place for romanticized ideals, ones that she has forgotten or, more likely, put away.

The ending of A Short Film About Love is completely different from the one of Decalogue VI. The television version ends on an ironic, almost bitter note. Kieslowski created the cinema ending at the request of Szapolowska who suggested that a more optimistic, even happier ending than the one in Kieslowski and Piesiewicz's original script. The ending they came up with approaches the trancendental heights of the conclusions to The Double Life of Veronique and Blue.

A Short Film About Love also bears some similarities to White. Both open with seemingly out of place scenes that, it later transpires, are flash-forwards to important plot elements. Both films feature their protagonist watching the object of their desire though a bedroom window, crushed by the sexual betrayal they witness. (However, whereas White's Karol Karol embarks on an elaborate revenge scheme against a cold and bitter wife, Tomek is obsessed with a woman he doesn't even know.) Finally, both movies find the women at their centers in emotional places they certainly did not expect. White, though, is a story of of love withered and they regrown, ASFAL is a search for love, beginning unrequited by one partner, ultimately discovered within the other.

Visually, A Short Film About Love couldn’t be more different from its sister feature, A Short Film About Killing. Instead using the sickly hues employed by Slawomir Idziak, Witold Adamek shoots in a relatively naturalistic style. This is not to say that the photography is uninteresting at all, only that Kieslowski here goes for a gentler, more lyrical style. The same goes for Zbigniew Preisner’s music. Dominated by a classical guitar theme, the score is in keeping with the more romantic style of some of their other collaborations.

Kieslowski was somewhat reluctant to work Graznya Szapolowska again after butting heads during the production of No End (1984), but he knew she was the only one for the role. She gives an excellent performance, never letting Magda become unlikable despite her initial attitude towards Tomek. As her youthful admirer, Olaf Lubaszenko likewise keeps Tomek from being creepy or sleazy, especially given his tendency to peep. Who hasn’t had those feelings for someone they hardly know, an idea that they would be perfect together? Similarly, who hasn’t reacted badly to unwanted attention, only to find unusual sympathy for that person? They way Kieslowski structures his film, they audience is given two identification figures, two sides of the same coin.

Like their dvd of Killing, Kino’s disc replicates the features found on the region 2 discs, making these important films more accessible to North American viewers. The 1.66 transfer is anamorphically enhanced, and quality wise is very similar to Killing (setting aside the stylized photography aspect that comes into play for the other film). Sound is fine and clear. Annette Insdorf provides another short examination of the film. Szapolowska is interviewed and though she speaks well of her collaboration with the director, she is not shy about the fact that she feels he abandoned some of his Polish roots (and fellow workers) when he began making films in Western Europe after Decalogue. (Though is should be noted that the majority of White takes place in Poland and stars the two leads from Decalogue X, one of whom, Jerzy Stuhr, also starred in Camera Buff [1979].) Emmanuel Finkiel, Kielsowski’s assistant director on Three Colors, gives insight into some of the director’s methods, especially his tendency to go through many different cuts in the editing process. Trailers from the Killing disc for the other Kino releases are repeated here.

The final extra is Kieslowski’s black and white short film Tramway (1966). Already familiar to owners of the Three Colors box set (it also appears on the White dvd), its inclusion here is appropriate. A man gazes longingly at a woman on a bus. He gets off, only to change his mind and run after her. That’s all that happens in this five minute film, but it is gorgeously shot and looks forward to both later themes and even specific instance in Love (Tomek and Magda rush to catch a bus after their ‘date’).

Perhaps less well know than the more draining Killing, A Short Film About Love shouldn’t be neglected due to its relatively lesser notoriety. Viewers familiar only with the later multinational co-productions would do well to explore Kieslowski’s earlier work, and these two films (along with Decalogue) provide a perfect bridge between those two periods. Both are out May 11. More titles will follow in August.