Kieslowski

In his viewer's guide to Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colours Trilogy—part of the BFI Modern Classics series—Geoff Andrew wrote that:

Kieslowski belongs to that small number of filmmakers—most notable are Dreyer, Rossellini, Bresson, Bergman and Tarkovsky—who have attempted to explore, through a medium that is by its very nature materialistic and confined to the visual reproduction of physical surfaces, a world that is obscure, metaphysical and transcendental. . . . And while Kieslowski fully deserves to be acclaimed as a humanist, as a chronicler of contemporary mores, as an expert storyteller and an accomplished technician, it was, first and foremost, his ability to evoke those mysterious, unseen forces and our reactions to them, that made him one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of cinema. (p. 68)

Two scenes from The Double Life of Veronique (1991) will suffice. You may want to try an experiment. First, listen to the scene with your eyes closed trying to imagine what is going on. Then watch it. A Kieslowski film is as much a listening exercise as a seeing one.





Listened to any good movies lately?