Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue Series: The Problem of the Protagonists and Their Self-Transcendence (East European Monographs)
Hindu (Free subscription) | 10/30/2009
Three Colors Red is a 1994 French-Polish-Swiss co-production, co-written, produced and directed by Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski. It is the final film of the Three Colors trilogy, which examines the French Revolutionary ideals. It ...
The One-Line Review (Free subscription) | 10/26/2009
Poland Feature Film Original Title: Bez konca Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski Writers: Krzysztof Kieslowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz Cinematographer: Jacek Petrycki Composer: Zbigniew Preisner Cast: Grazyna Szapolowska, Maria Pakulnis, Aleksander Bardini, Jerzy Radziwilowicz, Artur Barcis, Michal Bajor, Marek Kondrat, Tadeusz Bradecki, Danny Webb When a ballsy young lawyer dies of a heart attack, at a...
Biblical Recorder (Free subscription) | 10/22/2009
I just hosted a discussion with three film critics on the topic, “The Best Movies About God You’ve Never Seen.” For you film lovers out there, I’ll disclose the top three in no particular order: Wim Wenders’ “Wings of Desire” (1987), Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “The Decalogue” (1989), and finally, “Babette’s Feast,” a 1987 film...
Times Online (Free subscription) | 10/16/2009
The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 brought cultural and political liberation to the former Eastern bloc. But as these nations soon discovered, the collapse of communism was catastrophic for cinema. Even now, 20 years later, many film-makers are struggling to adjust to a harsh new artistic and economic climate.
Times of India (Free subscription) | 10/10/2009
In the first of a series in which filmmakers talk about influences and icons, Vishal Bharadwaj salutes the masters whose cinema changed his life forever ...
Ultrabrown (Free subscription) | 09/30/2009
[Putting up some of my recent columns; this one was for the Sunday Business Standard]Many DVD-enthusiasts I know have begun wading in the vast ocean that goes by the generic name “World Cinema”, and one of the first things they discover is the Thre...
look back in anger (Free subscription) | 09/22/2009
there is a glorious rainbow that consists of only shades of red. when it comes to oil painting, my personal favorite is called cadmium deep. from sunsets to strawberries, the emotionally charged color is so beautifully varied and yummy. from top: polish director krzysztof kieslowski's 'red'/picasso's red period/kurt cobain's magenta period/powdered pigments for india's 'holi' festival/film version...
RANDOM ANOMALIES (Free subscription) | 09/21/2009
I 've already given my two cents about this film back in January so I won't be redundant. I did mention then how impressed I was at the way this movie was shot. It's a true study of composition and a great example of how films can achieve an the extra level of richness by adding a visual subtext to the narrative. Overall the look of this movie is reminiscent of the late eighties Polish mini-series...
Terry Malick's son (Free subscription) | 09/05/2009
Two things to note about the title; one, it's not that short (yes, I'm being pedantic) and two, it's not really your typical love story. Krzysztof Kieslowski is something of a darling amongst the critics and festivals, chalking up wins at Cannes on the way. His most famous films are the Three Colours Trilogy, a saga that travelled various countries and had intertwining stories. A short film about love...
the Whole Garden Will Bow (Free subscription) | 08/26/2009
There are many Humorous Caption Contests, ranging from The New Yorker to Cinematical, but I thought we’d try a different slant. Let’s try a caption contest whose goal is to provide an erudite quip, a recondite comment, a pretentious aphorism. I won’t necessarily penalize for humor, but I’m looking for arrogant, show-off-y knowledge and/or obscure, artistic [...]
The Agitation of the Mind (Free subscription) | 08/26/2009
SPOILER ALERT: Minor spoilers abound. Moderate spoilers are also in evidence. The big mo-humba, however, has been kept under wraps. Krzysztof Kieslowski’s ‘Blind Chance’ opens with a sequence of fragmentary vignettes that may be memory, contemporaneously occurring events, or glimpses of what’s to come. The first shot is of a man screaming. By the end of the film, it’s...
Sasha's films (Free subscription) | 08/21/2009
Come to the Gatsby Room in Wolfson College's this Sunday the 23rd of August around 21:00 to see one of the masterpieces of director Krzysztof Kieslowski - "the Double Life of Véronique": Weronika lives in Poland, Véronique in Paris. Their lives run as parallel as lives can do, yet they are bound by links that stretch beyond mere space. Alike as Doppelgängers, they also...
Arts Admin (Free subscription) | 08/20/2009
The Decalogue is ten fifty-five-minute-or-so films by Krzysztof Kieslowski, made for television in the late 1980s in Poland, all set in a rather grim Warsaw apartment complex (although Kieslowski apparently remarked that it was actually one of the nicer ones), "about" (not really the right word) the ten commandments. Kieslowski said : For 6,000 years, these rules have been unquestionably...
Hooting Yard (Free subscription) | 08/09/2009
Dear Mr Key, writes Olivia Funnel, Perhaps I am thick. Or perhaps, by dint of my airy-fairy upbringing on a hippy commune, I do not possess a criminal’s imagination. Whatever the reason, I am utterly in the dark regarding the way in which otters in a laundry basket could prove a pivotal element in a [...]
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 08/05/2009
In the year of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, three festivals in the former eastern bloc saw film-makers serving up real treats East European Cinema. Can any other three words create as much dread or indifference in the minds of most filmgoers? To many of the uninitiated, east European films, like the countries from whence they come, conjure up nothing but doom and gloom. Less...
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