Krótki film o milosci (1988)

Director:

Krzysztof Kieslowski

Writers:

Krzysztof Kieslowski (writer)
Krzysztof Piesiewicz (writer)

Release Date:

20 April 1989 (West Germany)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

19-year-old Tomek whiles away his lonely life by spying on his opposite neighbour Magda through binoculars...

Plot Keywords:

Self Mutilation | Milkman | Postal Worker | Scissors | Remake

Awards:

7 wins

Cast

Grazyna Szapolowska	...	Magda
Olaf Lubaszenko	...	Tomek
Stefania Iwinska	...	Godmother
Piotr Machalica	...	Roman
Artur Barcis	...	Young Man
Miroslawa Chojnacka
Stanislaw Gawlik	...	Postman
Tomasz Gradowski
Rafal Imbro
Jan Piechocinski
Krzysztof Koperski	...	Gasman in Magda's Apartment
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Hanna Chojnacka	...	Miroslawa

Also Known As:

A Short Film About Love (International: English title)
Krótki film o miłości (Poland)

Runtime:

86 min | West Germany:90 min (Berlin Film Festival)

Country:

Poland

Language:

Portuguese | Polish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Chile:18 | Finland:K-16 | Germany:12 | Hungary:16 | Singapore:M18 | South Korea:18 | Sweden:11

Company:

Zespol Filmowy "Tor"

Goofs:

Continuity: When Tomek goes out onto the roof above Magda's flat, his black eye and split lip are gone. They reappear when he goes back into the building.

Movie Connections:

Remade as Ek Chhotisi Love Story (2002)

One of the most sensitive and powerful depictions of love ever committed to film.

Unlike the other masterpiece in his Decalogue, Killing, in 'A Short Film About Love' Kieslowski treats the subject of love with an extraordinarily delicate, rather than a polemic, eye. As ever he manages to express more with subtlety than most directors ever will with expression: it is rather what is not said, what is not expressed, that leaves an indelible mark upon us.

Olaf Lubaszenko's central performance as the boy is, rather than 'opaque' as it has been termed, engrossing from the start. His innocence and fragility, just like the film's, are an invitation to the intimacy we progressively acquire. We, the film's audience, watch engrossed and exposed just as does he, and, in another sense, does the subject of his observations. His telescope becomes a direct motif; distance, separation, enlargement: all the things the filmmaker provides for the viewer. Thus, at emotional, intellectual and metacinematic levels the film explores its themes: observation and love.

While it may not come to solid conclusions (nor ought it to), the sensitivity with which the director watches his actors is utterly compelling. The resultant negotiation between man and women, subject and observer, viewer and filmmaker is a relationship, a love affair. Perhaps Barthes might have sought to go further, waiting for the end of the film, its 'death', to find psychological and sexual consummation to such an affair, and the film may support such a reading. Even a far less academic approach is sufficient, however, in order to enjoy the work at it appears at face value. We do not need to analyse in order to feel, and it is the film's emotional impact that remains when our brief voyeurism, our visit to the cinema, ends.