The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieślowski

What makes an auteur? In the context of cinema, the auteur is the director who applies a high amount of control and artistic vision across all aspects of his/her films, so the films will have recognizable stylistic and thematic qualities that reflect the director. Auteur theory states that there should be a similarity in either style or meaning and motifs in the films (p. 456). In this essay, I will examine two films by Krzysztof Kieślowski (“Three Colors: Blue” and “A Short Film About Love”) in the light of these indispensable approach (p. 457) and discuss the recognizable stylistic and thematic touch in Kieślowski’s films.

Kieślowski is one of the most popular and successful Polish directors. He is known for his unique way to communicate via camera shots and music. His scripts in films are laconic, he prefers to use images and actions to tell a story and convey emotions. Three Colors: Blueis a 1993 drama film and is the first part of Kieślowski’s “three colors” trilogy. This film is about a woman who struggles to continue her life after the loss of her husband and daughter in a car accident and traces her mourning and attempts to rebuild her life. A Short Film About Loveis a 1988 film and a feature version of one of Kieślowski’s The Decalogueepisodes. This film is about a young man’s romantic obsession with a woman who is a neighbor across the street and his attempts to insert himself into her life.

Kieślowski has a unique narration style and he concentrates on the psychological and emotional layer of characters. His characters have deep and strong emotions that are expressed via their actions rather than their dialogues. Also, Kieślowski uses visual and sound techniques to make the audience feel as they are looking at the world through the character’s eyes. One of the main emotions seen in these two films is pain. In A Short Film of Love, Tomek’s godmother tells the story of how Tomek’s brother forgot his dental pain by pressing an iron to his shoulder. Both Tomek and Julie do not express their feelings and not cry over their emotional paint. They tend to forget their inner intense pain by painful actions. As Julie moves away from her family home, she rubs her fist against the wall and makes it bleed to forget her numbing grief. Tomek, on the other hand, cuts his finger after seeing Magda crying or he presses the ice against his ears after his conversation with Magda.

Kieślowski has an idiosyncratic way of camera usage and editing. In Three Colors: Blue, there is a fading effect that the director used more than once. This fading effect creates the impression of a different scene or a flashback will be moved to, but after a short black screen, the scene continues where it left off, as if Julie won’t let a flashback or thought reminiscent of her old life. Kieślowski explains these fading scenes as “at a certain moment, time really does pass for Julie white at the same time, it stands still. Not only does her music come back to haunt her at a certain point”.

In A Short Film About Love, we watch from the point of view of Tomek. We accompany Tomek’s voyeurism, and we follow Magda with the movements of the telescope. On the contrary, Julie is the constant subject of the camera’s view in Three Colors: Blue. Kieślowski uses different camera angles and close-up shots and plays with reflections in both of his films.

Music has an important role in both films and the soundtrack composer of these two films is the same person, Zbigniew Preisner. In Three Colors: Blue, Kieślowski creates a bridge between the gap of non-diegetic and diegetic sounds. For example, when Julie looks at the music sheets, the audience hears the parts of the composition that she is looking at. As Julie's finger moves along the notes, the audience hears the music corresponding to notes. So, Kieślowski makes the audience hear what’s going on in Julie’s head. Also, we can see the music is hunting Julie throughout the film. In the pool scene, a strong music suddenly starts while Julie is swimming and she gasps and tries to get rid of this music in her head.

Although the music used in A Short Film About Love is not as impressive as Three Colors: Blue, I think utilization of music in this film is successful to create emotions in the audiences. For example, it is unacceptable that Tomek stalks Magda in an obsessive manner, but the romantic and soft music used in the film makes this act more romantic and acceptable in the eyes of the audiences.

Lastly, I want to mention the “liberty” theme in Three Colors: Blue. Three colors trilogy represents the colors of French flag and thus they represent the ideals of French revolution: liberty, equality and fraternity. Blue represents the theme of liberty but Kieślowski was not interested in making explicitly political films. That’s why he loaded emotional meaning to this theme rather than political or social meaning. Julie tries to liberate herself from her ties to the past after the car accident; she throws her husband's unfinished composition to trash, moves into a new apartment without a child etc. But no matter how hard she tries to escape, we see that she failed and was haunted by her old memories. When she realizes that she cannot escape, she tries to rebuild her life: she completes her husband’s unfinished composition and decides to leave the old family house to her husband’s lover.

Bibliography

“Three Colors: Blue”. Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 July 2020, [Retrieved from] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Colours:_Blue

Wollen P. The Auteur Theory. Film Theory & Criticism, by L. Braudy & M. Cohen, 2009, 7th ed., New York: Oxford University Press, p. 455-470