Kieslowski: The Student Films and Documentaries

I've begun my exciting journey into the life and cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski, to me one of the master's of cinema. I wanted to explain more why I've decided to explore this particular director. There are certain films I feel a personal connection with, it happened more than once with Kieslowski. The first instance happened when I viewed his "Three Colours Trilogy", then again with "The Double Life of Veronique", and finally with "The Decalogue". Much like I was with Ozu, Kieslowski seemed to happen by accident, I didn't know the name, I knew of the films and that they were important in film history, but I wasn't expecting a vision that touches my own sensibilities so directly.

Like Ozu, Kieslowski is a filmmaker not initially recognizable like Welles, or Hitchcock, or even Truffaut or Godard, he is rather someone who is discovered overtime. I've come to regard his films as some of the greatest achievements over the last 30 years, and I felt the need to understand them and their creator even more. So I've come to this little project of mine, simply for my own benefit as I further develop my own film education.

I wanted to begin at the beginning, most of what I know of Kieslowski's work has to do the final third of his career beginning with "The Decalogue", and ending with "The Three Colours". I was interested to find where this man came from and the kind of environment he was brought up in.

The extraordinary thing about Kieslowski's career is how it started, he began in Communist Poland. He was born in Warsaw in 1941, his father was a civil engineer which required the family to move around a lot, Kieslowski later said that the constant travel is what initially made him curious about the world. He originally intended to become a theatre director when he entered The Contemporary Theatre, and since advanced studies were required he entered film school as an intermediate study. He applied at the Lodz Film School, the same place that housed such students as Roman Polanski and Andrzej Wajda. After being rejected a twice, Kieslowski was determined to get in and finally did after the third try.

From what I understand about reading about Lodz Film School, it was like a safe haven for artistic people in communist Poland. It was the only place where you could view American movies, and be benefit ted from having international guest speakers. This allowed Kieslowski to get a bigger aspect of the world.

While studying at Lodz, Kieslowski made a number of student films, some of which I was able to view.

Concert of Wishes: A 17 minute short dealing with a school bus full of juvenile students with the exception of one thoughtful looking bespectacled outcast. While the the students are playing football at a rest stop, the outcast goes off to spy on a young couple on a motorbike. The boy is rather rude and indifferent to his girlfriend in the beginning, but later when the girl is taunted by the students and the bus driver on the street, he flings her away and the two ride off together in love. The young outcast perhaps in a moment of defiance kinks the student's football out of sight.

Of the student films by Kieslowski, I liked this one the best, I found it to be romantic and idealistic at the same time wise about young love. Throughout the film we get the sense that Kielowski's idea of young love is a rather fleeting one.

The Office: A hard to follow six minute short mostly because it had no subtitles, but the idea is still there. It follows the no end bureaucratic nonsense of a Polish office. We see people in line ups waiting to be served, we see office workers behind counters telling people where to go and what to do. The final image is the back office with countless files and papers that seem to still have to be sorted through.

Although you can't understand what is being said, Kieslowski uses strong imagery to show his story and the idea of bureaucracy at an office building is a universal language we can all understand.

The Trolley: A very effective short film which I found to be very dreamlike. A lonely young man leaves a crowded place and hops on board a trolley. There he sees a girl, she smiles at him, later she is asleep and he observes her. He then leaves the trolley but becomes obsessed with seeing the girl again, he runs after it.

The film was done in black and white with no sound at all. For me it was very dreamlike and hints at the kind of romantic obsession later seen in other Kieslowski's work.

The Face: A rather avante guarde short film with a man (I think it may be a young Kieslowski himself) who seems to despise his own face. He seems to be an artist with many self-portraits, which he decides to destroy.

The title of the film is pretty much what you get. It is very much an experimental student film again done with no dialogue but this time with a musical soundtrack. If it is Kieslowski in the film and I am almost 99% sure it is, it's interesting to see him act in front of the camera letting out what seems to be youthful angst.

After his education at Lodz, Kieslowski did what one who is familiar with only his later work wouldn't expect, he worked in documentaries. Throughout the seventies, Kieslowski would direct over 30 short documentaries, many of which would go on to win international prizes. What I find interesting is how much his personal philosophy of film changes from this time to his later work. Kieslowski the young filmmaker praises documentaries at the time.

In a 1979 interview he says "When I make a fiction film I always know how it will end. When I shoot a documentary I don't. And it's exciting to not know how the shot will end, not to mention the whole film. For me the documentary is a greater artform than fiction filmmaking because I think life is more intelligent than I am. It creates more interesting situations than I could invent on my own."

It was later that Kieslowski decided to change his tune a little bit. After making the documentary "First Love" about young couple who are having a baby, Kieslowski felt that while he was filming he was intruding on their personal lives.

"The documentary camera doesn't have the right to enter what interests me most, He said in an interview, "the intimate, private life of individuals. I preferred to buy glycerin at the pharmacy, and actors to stimulate crying, than filming real people crying, or making love, or dying."

From my standpoint, I do understand Kieslowski's reasoning behind this moral stance, many documentaries which I see do make me feel squeamish as the camera become more intrusive perhaps to get to the truth to something that the people weren't prepared to share. This type of documentary for me is difficult to watch and perhaps Kieslowski's comment can be seen as a forerunner to outlandish reality television (just a thought).

Although he would continue to make documentaries for four more years after this comment, he would venture into fictional filmmaking for a period.

Of the many documentaries Kieslowski directed I viewed three of them.

Factory: This was one of his first professional films as it shows a Polish factory juxtaposing images of the labour workers against that of an executive meeting. Through the meeting we learn that the future of the factory is uncertain, there is a lack of equipment and needs in the factory, we are left at the end with a feeling of uncertainty.

Kieslowski never considered himself a political filmmaker, yet his documentaries can be interpreted to have a very political undertone to it. What he is showing is life in communist Poland, they are without certain necessities to make a country work. I think what Kieslowski was showing was Polish life and he couldn't help it if it was a bleak one.

Hospital: This was my favorite of the documentaries I viewed, a 32 day in a Polish Hospital. As in "Factory", the film depicts the rotten conditions of the working environment. If this weren't a documentary you might mistake it for a very dark comedy. There are moments where surgical instruments break off in the middle of an operation, a nurse has to hold an electrical cable a certain way in order for an certain instrument to keep operating, and one patient even worries about being tortured by the doctor. The film uses time as it clicks off what happens every hour in the shift and what it documents. Kieslowski doesn't seem to intrude with his camera, he is only there to show what is going on. The doctors and nurses are shown as good people, understaffed, and overworked, despite its bleak world, it creates a perfectly vivid and exciting look at the workings in a hospital.

Railway Station: Made in 1980, this would be one of Kieslowski's two final documentaries. Again showing a public environment in Poland, an overcrowded railway station where people are waiting endlessly for a delayed train. The film has a lot in common with Kieslowski's student short "The Office" as it shows the long line ups and impatient people who have to put up what looks to be government incompetence.

By this time Kieslowski had made some fictional films, and in this film you can see a bit of playfulness involved with telling the story. For instance, there are many shots of the railway surveillance camera moving around and Kieslowski puts in some ominous drum muisc to enhance the rather depressing state the people are in.

After viewing some of his student films and documentaries, I found Kieslowski more interesting than ever. Like many artists he started from humble beginnings, his ideas changed as he experienced more, but he always seemed to have this great need to show a certain truth in all of his films.

Before viewing his short documentaries, I also viewed a short entitled "The Musicians", a 10 minute documentary and a film Kieslowski considers one of the greatest ever made. It was directed by a Lodz film professor Kazimierz Karabacz and depicts aging factory workers who play for a local amateur symphony. Along with their conductor, the band starts off with playing and fine tuning their instruments until they finally make some actual music.

As Kieslowski puts it "It is so rare for a short to express so many things, in a manner so beautiful and simple, about the need to create which is inherent in human beings. Because , in addition to satisfying our elementary needs-survival, eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, and sleeping after work- we all aspire to something which gives meaning to our life and elevates it."

It is this aspiration to find meaning in our life that Kieslowski would later study in his later major work, and which this blog will focus on next.

(Above photo from Kieslowski's student film "Concert of Wishes")