Koncert zyczen (1967) User Reviews

Early Kieslowski film with many questions.

[A_Roode · 6/10 · 16 April 2006]

*** POSSIBLE MINOR SPOILERS ***

I think that 'Concert of Wishes' is best viewed as what it was: an unpolished short film from film school. Short films, for me anyway, are less interesting than features. They can be very difficult to pull off because your narrative and the point of your film has to be focused in on intensely and quickly. You don't have the budget, time or luxury to be self-indulgent. What 'Concert of Wishes' offers is the promise of a film-maker who would go on to bigger and better things.

The film is about a young man and his girlfriend on a camping trip. On the other side of the lake are a bunch of young buffoons (a guy with glasses and a ball is the only exception). Both groups are leaving around the same time. As the young couple passes the bus their tent falls off and the buffoons take it. The girl insists they go back for the tent and when they do, the buffoons say they will only exchange the tent for the girl. Hijinks ensue.

Two things I liked about the film: 1)the curiosity. The camera is probing and curious. It is always watching and seeking out. The boy with the ball is running through the woods but the camera peeks out at him from behind trees, never trying to reveal himself. The boy himself becomes an observer. He conceals himself in the trees and watches as the young couple pack up their camp site and prepare to leave. Characters in this film tend to either stare intensely at you like the boy (or those children of the corn wannabes at the road side) or stare at you as extroverts (like the boys on the bus who want to swap the girl for the tent). 2) the menace. This is a very menacing film and I thought it was pretty effective. When the young couple passes the bus on their motorcycle they are harassed. Realizing they've lost the tent, the guy would rather just forget about it. The girl wants to go back and retrieve it. A test? I'm not sure. It is menacing when they get back to the waiting bus. They are surrounded and I found myself wondering if they were as likely to get the tent back as they were to be robbed, raped and murdered.

I'm not sure if the tent or the ID papers were more important. The girl says that her papers were in the tent that they lost. It turns out that her boyfriend had them in his pocket. Did either of them know they were there or not? The boyfriend isn't distant with his girlfriend but he's not warm either (think of his annoyance at having to part her hair instead of finishing packing and repairing the motorcycle). Is her willingness to be exchanged for the tent a test of his true feelings? And is her willingness to go a test for the boy of her true feelings? All of this depends upon whether or not they knew the true location of the papers.

I find myself left with more questions than answers. It's a moral film and there may be some allegorical reference to society in Communist Poland that I don't get. Maybe as I watch it again I'll find the answers that I want.

More than meets the eye . . .

[gwf642002 · 10/10 · 19 August 2006]

For a mere 15-minute student film, Kieslowski is able to fit several layers of meaning within the characters and the story. On its surface, this film at first seems to be about a couple on a camping trip and a group of rowdy students and their driver who are parked not that far from the couple. A tent is lost and retrieved. Well, there is much more than that. Kieslowski initially juxtaposes the sober couple with the lecherous and drinking students and connects them through one of the students who in more modern times would be referred to as a "nerd." The nerd does not participate in his fellow students' drinking, music and reverie, but instead plays with a football (soccer ball) which leads him to watch the couple from afar. When we first see the couple, they are packing up their camping equipment, and Eva is combing her hair. She asks her boyfriend if her part is even and without looking he says "yes" and continues on with his packing. She tries to comb his hair, which he later messes up. He then has to fix their motorbike, and he dismisses Eva's smiles towards him. In general, he is rather cold towards her amorousness. The couple appear a bit older than the students, and in particular the boyfriend is all business (packing, fixing the bike, testing the headlamps.) Whereas the students are free and could care less about their inebriated driver, who as the only adult there is careless about his students. At one point while the bike is being fixed, Eva notices that the students are leaving as well. The students know that the couple are getting ready to go, too. Once they are on their way, their bike eventually passes the bus and the students yell out the window at them. We notice Eva's left hand moving backwards (she might be loosening the tent.) As they pull away, the tent is left in front of the bus on the road. Farther down the road, the driver realizes the tent is gone, and he says he could care less about it. Eva insists on going back because the tent was a gift and her ID is in it (we later find out that the ID is in his jacket.) She is attracted to the free, fun-loving students (who we hear listening to a song that repeats "20 years old") who probably remind her of her recent past before getting with the boyfriend. Interestingly, she is asked by him after the two excuses "Why do you want to go back there?" She mentions the ID again. When they finally realize that the driver has the tent, the driver asks for a finders' reward. Eva says they have no money and then agrees to go with the students in response to their request. (If her boyfriend is not worried about the tent, it would seem that they have money.) At this point, Eva clearly wants to have fun with the group. All along, the nerd lingers. The man then decides to give back his tent and get Eva to come back with him. For the first time in the film, the couple are loving and happy. She realizes that he cares for her, and he realizes that he has to be a bit warmer to her. As they fade out of the shot, a pop song plays: "Never again stare at me with those eyes," which is a direct reference to the boyfriends' coldness earlier. We watch the couple move up and down on the undulating road and finally out of the shot, which indicates the ups and downs of any relationship. In all, this is an excellent short film. There are some directors who cannot place into a two hour film what Kieslowski put in a 15-minute student project.

Didn't really do anything for me I'm afraid

[bob the moo · 30 July 2004]

A young man and his girlfriend are staying at a camp site near to where a group of other young men are all camped together. The busload of boys leave first but, having packed all their stuff away, the couple pass them on their motorbike – ignoring their catcalls on the way. The couple soon realize that they have dropped their tent somewhere on the road and turn back to look for it – only to find that the busload of boys has stopped and found it first. The boys make a simple proposal – the tent in exchange for the girl.

The plot summary makes it sound interesting and it was enough to make me interested enough to give it a go but really I must say I was left wondering what I had just spent 15 minutes of my time on. I'm sure fans of Kieslowski will come after me for daring to suggest that this but this is just not very good! The direction is good in that it is quite well shot with plenty to hold the eye. However, substance-wise there is not a great deal going on here – there is stuff that is so out of place that I'm sure it was meant to mean something, but goodness only knows what. The overall narrative has no real meaning either and nothing really happens – I'm sure it is all meant to mean something in the context of the couple's relationship but if it did it certainly did a very good job of keeping it a secret!

The cast are OK and seem natural enough but there is no real material for them to work with and none of them have any characters – a problem that can sometimes occur where the script is more interested in what the characters represent than who they are in themselves. Generally the boys just shout and act like a mass rather than individuals who can be picked out.

Overall a disappointing short film that left me with nothing at all after I had watched it. The plot is very simple but isn't anywhere near as interesting as it sounds and the meaning that I assume was there is so well hidden that I must admit I found it to be almost without meaning or point. A shame but happily it was from a director who got a lot better and more interesting as he went on.

What is important to a man ?

[FilmCriticLalitRao · 10/10 · 20 August 2008]

It is generally believed that a short film with glimpses of unrequited love is an oddity.Kieslowski proves that such is not the case with his protagonists as a sensible winner can do everything in order to make things work for him.Leave us,play your silly tricks elsewhere.This is the one of the most pertinent message which can be deduced from Krzysztof Kieslowski's short film "Koncert Zyczen".It is much more than a simple boy takes his girl on a picnic story.Kieslowski shows us that betrayal can happen at an early stage in case of two people's relationships.He asks an important question:What should be important to a man ? His girl's companionship or some obscure identity card ? There are a lot of irresponsible young people in this film yet Kieslowski is in no mood to mock them.He is rather willing to show them as they are with all their strengths and weaknesses.Like young people from other countries,Kieslowski suggests that even young people from Poland have a penchant for music,carefree life,fun and frolic.This is the best non political,non ideological message of this film.

well ...

[bonsai232001 · 18 May 2005]

I totally agree with bob the moo. The directing style reminded me of Lucian Pintilie and his "Reconstituirea", made in the same period of time. I guess that in the '60 (u can see that in the good movies from that period, an example - Knife in the Water by Polanski - there is an atmosphere typically in those films. The "Concert..." is very well shot, has a nice end but it doesn't say a thing. I liked the grotesque characters in the bus, the idiot with the ball, the driver, the cheap young girls. I d'ont understand why the boy let the girl to leave with the guys from the bus. For a tent that he didn't want back in the first place ? For the identity card ?

Maybe more comments ?

Another ride for the hell of it.

[max von meyerling · 5 April 2006]

Now we see the world of Kieslowski admit the existence of a world filled with selfish, uncaring swine, a world where uncouth, culturally depraved people seek only to inflict pain and discomfort on one another. Cheesy Polish pop music heard through a cheap, tinny speaker rattles on in its inane way. Two groups are picnicking near a highway in the woods. One is an amorous couple with a motorcycle, the other a bus load of louts on an outing with the exception on one nerd. We know they're louts because they drink non stop tossing the empties away to break into a pile of glass shards on the road or bobbing on the surface of the nearby lake. Both groups leave. The motorcyclists who bear a resemblance to the married couple in Knife in the Water two generations removed) pass the bus (the tension between them palpable) and something fall off the back of the bus. It is a much fussed over tent (the girl refused to help the boy pack it up). The boy doesn't want to go back, the girl insists because she left her papers with it. The girl decides to wait beside the road and then changes her mind to go back with him. The louts who have made a rest stop menacingly deny having the tent but offer to exchange it for some time with the girl. The boy agrees and the girl goes off with them, he look ambivalent. The boy searches his pocket and finds the girl's papers. He nullifies the deal and they're off.

Some things to consider here, besides the obvious cultural depravity of the louts, is the deep ethical and moral abyss in which the couple find themselves in and remain unrepentantly oblivious to. The boy sells his girlfriend and it matters not to her one way or the other. Except when it doesn't seem necessary because the material wherewithal is present.

The other thing is that as desperately ugly as their behavior appears to be it still can not be categorized as anti-social which was the standard of criminal behavior in Socialist Poland. So nothing is wrong here so it must be right. Then why is it so ugly, Kieslowski seems to be commenting.

If there is any cinematic reference in this work it tends to be Fellini, for the road, for the music, and for the examination of spiritual emptiness.

There are certain similarities to a sponsored road safety film by Dreyer DE NÅEDE FÆRGEN (THEY MADE THE FERRY)1948.