Przejscie podziemne (1974) (TV)

User Rating:

5.1/10   

Director:

Krzysztof Kieslowski

Writers:

Ireneusz Iredynski (writer)
Krzysztof Kieslowski (writer)

Release Date:

13 January 1974 (Poland)

Genre:

Short

Plot:

A school teacher from a small town in Poland comes to Warsaw to see his estranged wife, a window dresser, in the hope that she will return to him rather than give him a divorce. |

Cast

Teresa Budzisz-Krzyzanowska
Anna Jaraczówna
Zygmunt Maciejewski
Jan Orsza-Lukaszewicz
Andrzej Seweryn
Janusz Skalski

Also Known As:

Pedestrian Subway
The Underground Passage

Runtime:

28 min

Country:

Poland

Language:

Polish

Color:

Black and White

Company:

Telewizja Polska (TVP)

Trivia:

The film was shot in under an hour: After weeks of filming Kieslowski was horrified by the rushes, whereupon Slawomir Idziak suggested they shoot it all on one camera stopping only to reload the film. The total time it took to film the completed work was barely longer than its runtime.

The first Kieslowski Kieslowski.

This is the mature Kieslowski film in embryo. We see him leave his documentary style behind and strike out for new territory. First of all he collaborated with another writer, Ireneusz Iredynski. And then there is the fact that he is shooting better looking people, much better looking people

The story find two teachers from the provinces in Warsaw with a group of school children. The younger, movie star handsome teacher says he's going out for the night. In fact, he won't be back all night and will meet them in the train station in the morning. The older teacher gives him a wink and a thumbs up as he assumes, as does the audience that this will inevitably lead to a some sort of studly situation. The teacher goes into a vast underground passageway under a traffic circle in the center of Warsaw. After some confusion he finds the right shop and and the window dresser inside. He enters the shop and begins talking with the woman in a familiar and friendly manner. While the Kieslowski documentary technique, specifically identifies all the participants and their attributes as they are heavily involved with various bureaucracies and bureaucrats who have to know such things up front. Names and numbers, identity cars, marriage certificates and death certificates. Endless personal details.

Now Kieslowski is sparing with such details. The characters are never named nor the towns they're from. They have no 'back story'. They are just what you see and you learn things, like the precise relationship between the man and the woman, as its revealed in the normal course of things. In this case the man and woman are married. She's getting a divorce and he wants her back. Apparently he kicked her out of the house calling her a slut, but, considering subsequent Kieslowski works, very often men kick women out of their houses when the woman is halfway through the door holding a suitcase. The effect of leaving the past history as something of a black spot gives the view space to think, to consider, to ponder and to analyze: The magic of the later works.

This was supposed to be a ten day shoot and on the ninth day Kieslowski realized that what he was making was all wrong. On the last day instead he began all over again from the beginning and gave his actors a general talking to and had them speak their lines in their own words as if improvised and just followed them around the shop with a hand held camera.