Category: Directors Ki

Dekalog (1989) s01e09 – Nine

With Nine, writers Krzysztof Piesiewicz and Krzysztof Kieslowski have finally figured out how to parody themselves and the rest of “Dekalog.” This entry, overwrought from the opening titles, is awful, but Piesiewicz and Kieslowski never quite commit to the more melodramatic, soap opera plotting they could. And Nine suffers for it.

Piotr Machalica is a successful surgeon who finds out he’s impotent. He dreads telling his wife (played by Ewa Blaszczyk in one of the more thankless roles in film history) because she obviously won’t love him anymore. Kieslowski’s direction hammers in all the symbolism–it becomes absurdist by the end (Nine actually plays far better as a comedy)–but he’s never able to establish any chemistry whatsoever between Machalica and Blaszczyk.

And why would there be any? She’s an awful, heartless woman; he’s a martyr for manhood.

Nine’s really lame. I’m actually surprised how bad it gets.

Dekalog (1989) s01e08 – Eight

Eight is, unquestionably, great. At a certain point, it got good. And then Kieslowski didn’t screw up it being good. It started with problems, of course. The episode opens with Maria Koscialkowska as a lonely old college professor. Until Teresa Marczewska, a younger woman, shows up out of the blue to observe a class, it’s boring. It’s an ethics class. Where Kieslowski makes a reference to another episode of “Dekalog” and all of a sudden he lets off some steam. For the first time ever.

That release of pressure, along with Koscialkowska’s fantastic performance, lets Kieslowski and co-writer Piesiewicz make the fantastical real and solid. And that reference to the other episode helps with it.

Then it keeps going and it keeps getting better and better. After twenty-two minutes, Kieslowski hits every note. Though it’s because Koscialkowska and Marczewska are great. Their performances make Eight something spectacular.

Dekalog (1989) s01e07 – Seven

Seven is definitely one of the stronger “Dekalog” films, but Kieslowski can’t figure out what his best angle is into the story. The story is the thing of melodrama and soap opera–Maja Barelkowska’s character had a secret baby (fathered by her young teacher, Boguslaw Linda); her mother (Anna Polony) raised her granddaughter as her daughter. Barelkowska wants her back.

Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz’s script has way too much exposition–there are two or three scenes where everything stops so the characters talk about the past–but it’s pretty good when it comes to the characters acting in the present. And Kieslowski’s foreshadowing is mostly successful.

What isn’t successful is how Kieslowski and Piesiewicz treat Barelkowska. They can’t decide if she’s the victim or the villain. Never do they make her the protagonist. As a result, her performance’s weak. Everyone else is great though. Especially Katarzyna Piwowarczyk as the child.

Dekalog (1989) s01e06 – Six

Six is a mess and it shouldn’t be, because at the center of it director Kieslowski has this phenomenal performance from Grazyna Szapolowska. He opens with her (doing some hippy thing where she “blesses” her food), then moves the story to her stalker, played by Olaf Lubaszenko.

Now, what eventually happens is Janet Leigh comes on to Norman Bates and he tries to kill himself and she realizes her wanton slutty modern woman ways have taken away her chance for godly happiness.

Along the way, there’s some truly amazing acting from Szapolowska and all these missed opportunities in Krzysztof Piesiewicz and Kieslowski’s script. Half the film goes to Lubaszenko peeping on her (it’d have been more effective, after all the melodramatics, if it had just been this odd stalking movie), then everything else is rushed. Including, unfortunately, when Szapolowska starts stalking him back.

Szapolowska’s performance deserved a far better script.

Dekalog (1989) s01e05 – Five

One has to admire Kieslowski’s dedication to his goal. Sure, Five–which is the “Thou shall not kill” episode of “Dekalog”–is a terrible rumination on the death penalty, but Kieslowski is all in. For his flashback, he does a whole sepia tone filter thing. It’s not good in terms of how it shapes the film, but it’s competently executed by Slawomir Idziak. Sometimes even really well executed.

The sepia tone isn’t enough, however. The foreshadowing explaining why Miroslaw Baka just has to plot to murder a taxi driver (after causing a traffic accident from an overpass because he’s bored) gets repeated in the conclusion, in painfully bad exposition. For most of Five, Baka is a disaffected, sullen sociopathic punk rock kid. At the end, he’s the pleading Catholic who has lost his way.

And Kieslowski really misses the boat with Krzysztof Globisz’s crusading attorney.

Five’s a dreadful hour.

Dekalog (1989) s01e04 – Four

With Four, Kieslowski engages with the television format of “Dekalog” more than he has done before. No pun intended.

Four has a young woman discovering her father might not be her father, a fact he isn’t aware of either. Kieslowski and co-writer Piesiewicz don’t go so much for thought-provoking as discussion-provoking. Each moment in the episode is begging to be discussed, not analyzed.

Why not analyzed? Because Kieslowski and Piesiewicz create a closed system; they quarantine the sensational plot developments.

Playing the daughter, Adrianna Biedrzynska is okay. Kieslowski and editor Ewa Smal make sure to leave the viewer hints at where things are going. It’s more roadside billboards than ominous foreshadowing, particularly because the script’s structure is so soggy. Four stops and goes, stops and goes.

As a filmed play, it’s nearly successful (thanks to Biedrzynska and understated Janusz Gajos as the father).

Dekalog (1989) s01e03 – Three

How much one likes Three might be related to how much manipulation one is willing to put up with from a filmmaker. Kieslowski is masterful with manipulation this episode, so much so he doesn’t even pause when visibly guiding the viewer through. He isn’t ashamed, he isn’t proud, it’s just how he does things. It’s too inept to be pretentious.

The best example from Three is the idiotic car chase. Kieslowski and photographer Piotr Sobocinski don’t stage it competently. For all Kieslowski’s flourishes, moving ones escape him. He rarely attempts them (which makes the car chase particularly jarring).

The story has a reformed if unapologetic adulterer (Daniel Olbrychski) out for a Christmas Eve overnight with his former lover, Maria Pakulnis, looking for her husband. Is she mentally sound? Will he discover some dark secret?

After teasing some depth, Kieslowski goes a really simple route. Three moves fine, just goes nowhere.

Dekalog (1989) s01e02 – Two

This episode of “Dekalog” is a quiet, thoughtful story about a doctor and the wife of one of his patients. They’re neighbors, which puts them in an uncomfortable proximity as the wife has a secret from her husband and forces the doctor into her confidence.

The scenes between these characters–the doctor played by Aleksander Bardini, the wife by Krystyna Janda–amount for probably fifteen minutes of Two. The film runs almost an hour; most of the time, Kieslowski is examining Bardini and Janda. He applies a different level of focus throughout; Janda isn’t clear until the end, but Bardini’s character’s most telling scene is his first. There’s more exposition later, further exploration into his life to explain him, but it’s not telling, just interesting.

And beautifully acted. Kieslowski never goes overboard with symbolism, but Two wouldn’t work near as well without the fantastic performances from Bardini and Janda.

Dekalog (1989) s01e01 – One

For the first episode of “Dekalog,” director Kieslowski and co-writer Krzysztof Piesiewicz go straight for the jugular. Kieslowski fills the episode with foreshadowing until it spills over. And no symbolism is too obvious.

One is about a computer programming professor (Henryk Baranowski) and his similarly tech-enthusiastic son (Wojciech Klata). The tech is poorly visualized–in one scene, Baranowski runs a couple DIR commands and Kieslowski treats it like the second coming, which is the point. These fellows have abandoned God for their home computer.

Or maybe Baranowski is just a really bad dad. One’s full of symbolism, one’s full of story. Kieslowski goes with the former.

Both Klata and Baranowski are good in too obviously written roles. Great music from Zbigniew Preisner and lovely photography by Wieslaw Zdort.

What’s strange is how Kieslowski trusts the viewer to understand the little stuff, but not the big, obvious stuff.

Three Colors: Blue (1993, Krzysztof Kieslowski)

From the first few minutes of Blue, the entire thing seems conventional. Not exactly predictable, though it’s often somewhat predictable, but definitely conventional. And when it veers away from being conventional, it soon returns to it. Director Kieslowski figures out punctuation marks to draw the viewer’s attention to lead Juliette Binoche’s conflict and reuses them over and over again.

So maybe Blue is predictable. I guess conventional just sounded like less of a pejorative way of saying it.

Because Kieslowski isn’t trying for conventional. A good portion of the film is really just Binoche suffering after the death of her husband and child and rejecting her need to grieve. She’s forcing herself to persevere and Binoche does a wonderful job showing the conflict. There’s a lot of symbolism for those conflicts too, but Kieslowski offsets them with some fantastic scenes. Binoche’s relationship with her neighbor, sex worker Charlotte Véry, is peculiar and seems like it might lead somewhere interesting.

That lack of interesting destinations is Blue’s biggest problem at the end. Kieslowski wraps everything up rather neatly–shockingly neatly–by the last shot. Even though Binoche’s character tries hard not to lead a generative life anymore, she does. Only Kieslowski doesn’t want to deal with any of those threads for the conclusion.

Blue could have run thirty minutes with the story Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz go with. Of course, the story of Binoche’s listless wandering could have taken three hours.

Beautiful photography from Slawomir Idziak. Great acting.

Just… eh.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski; written by Kieslowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz, Agnieszka Holland, Edward Zebrowski and Slawomir Idziak; director of photography, Slawomir Idziak; edited by Jacques Witta; music by Zbigniew Preisner; production designer, Claude Lenoir; produced by Marin Karmitz; released by MK2 Diffusion.

Starring Juliette Binoche (Julie Vignon – de Courcy), Benoît Régent (Olivier), Florence Pernel (Sandrine), Charlotte Véry (Lucille), Hélène Vincent (La journaliste), Philippe Volter (L’agent immobilier), Claude Duneton (Le médecin) and Emmanuelle Riva (La mère).

RELATED