TheLittleSongbird As said in my review of 'A Short Film About Killing', the more work I see of Krzysztof Kieslowski, the stronger the feeling that he was an incredibly gifted director, responsible for some brilliant work, taken from us too soon.Have yet to see anything bad from him, with even my least favourite (the eighth episode of 'Dekalog') still being very good, with the masterful 'Dekalog' and 'Three Colors: Red' (all three "Three Colors" films are must watches, but especially 'Red') being particularly great. Like 'A Short Film About Killing' was an expansion of Episode 5 of 'Dekalog', 'A Short Film About Love' is an expanded feature length version of Episode 6 (to me like Episode 5 one of the best 'Dekalog' episodes).Granted, 'A Short Film About Love' is not for everybody and it is easy to understand why. It seems to have been mistaken for a depressing take on romantic love, to me while there is love and passion (being two of the main themes of Episode 6 of 'Dekalog') it is a more complex and darker interpretation of "love" but is actually much more than that. Often it is more a film about obsession, forgiveness, lust and heartache. People may easily dismiss 'A Short Film About Love' as pessimistic and dispassionate, perverted has even been used, while others find it beautiful, haunting and moving. Belong in the latter category myself.Kieslowski's films are all visually striking and exceptionally well made. The same can be said for 'A Short Film About Love'. As well as being beautifully shot with atmospheric use of colour to match the mood, it is gritty yet beautiful with many thoughtful and emotionally powerful images lingering long into the memory. Kieslowski's direction is quietly unobtrusive, intelligently paced and never too heavy, and the music is suitably intricate.The themes and ideals are used to full potential, and the characters and their relationships and conflicts feel so real and emotionally resonant without being heavy-handed. Despite being based around one of the ten commandments, don't let that put you off, resemblance to religion is relatively scant, unless anybody argues God's seeming love for sinners. Being a non-religious person that's not for me to say, just mentioning an interesting and quite unusual observation read recently about the film.Story-wise, it's deliberate in pace but rich and provocative. It's never dull, and more often than not it's creepy (like Magda being followed out of the post-office), poignant (Tomek on the roof, Magda in tears after knocking over milk and the heart-wrenching fantasy about what life might have been with him). There is even some nice black humour that is so subtle it's easy to miss.'A Short Film About Love's' themes of obsession, stalking, lust, love, passion, forgiveness and heartache are expertly explored, likewise with the characterisations and interactions. The acting is superb as to be expected from both the two leads, again the complexity and nuances of the performances is to be admired.Overall, another masterpiece from Kieslowski though one of his most divisive. 10/10 Bethany Cox

deepakahlu Before he stormed world cinema consciousness in the 1990s with the Three Colors trilogy (Blue, White, Red), the Polish genius Krzysztof Kieslowski directed a series of 10 short films for Polish TV collectively known as Dekalog. Based loosely on the ten commandments, two of these short films were later expanded to full length features. A Short Film About Love is one of them. A tale about a boy spying on and falling obsessively in love with an attractive older woman living across the street is compelling viewing. What, in lesser hands could well have been a ho-hum peeping tom movie, is turned by Kieslowski's sensitivity and understanding into a thing of beauty and radiance. An absolute gem. Watch it if you can — it will be an hour and a half well spent!

Armand a young man. a woman. evenings. a film not exactly about love but about a large circle of feelings. about solitude and need to escape from yourself. about East Europe in gray nuances and about freedom. about voyeurism. and the other as object of sense. a film like a trip in heart of things. nothing else. cold, interesting, precise. about people and fears. or, only, about love but in a special form. nothing new, at first sigh. but this is its virtue. to present ordinary things in a new manner. details. technical choices. good actors. lights, shadows, the life as scene or only space of contemplation. the other. like part from yourself.

Ilpo Hirvonen A Polish art-house director Krzysztof Kieslowski is most well known for his international films, La double vie de Véronique (1991) and the Three Colours trilogy: White, Blue and Red. Kieslowski graduated from Łódz's film school in Poland, from which many directors have started their journey, for instance Andrzej Wajda and Krzysztof Zanussi. Krzysztof started by directing documentaries, as many do. From documentaries he moved to television films and then to fiction features. Kieslowski is very well known from his TV-series "Dekalog" (1989), which still is seen as one of the highest achievement of European television. Dekalog is a ten episode long series about The Ten Commandments, each episode deals with one commandment. Some might find it odd that an atheist made a TV-series about The Ten Commandments, but Kieslowski doesn't approach the subject religiously as he does ethically. Because the Bible and The Ten Commandments have had a huge impact on our conception of what is right and what is wrong. As an entirety the series builds a picture of a modern man facing moral problems.This brief introduction leads us to Kieslowski's film A Short Film About Love (Krótki film o milosci). From two episodes of Dekalog Kieslowski decided to make full length films, episode five: Thou shalt not kill (A Short Film About Killing) and episode six: Thou shalt not commit adultery (A Short Film About Love). Both, the episode and the film, are very interesting. And the perspectives the viewer takes change. When watching the episode one tries to find a bond with the commandment - Thou shalt not commit adultery. But when watching the film one might simply look it as a survey of love in the world we live in.As in all episodes of Dekalog, so does A Short Film About Love take place in Polish suburb near Warsaw. Kieslowski tries to build his own world view in this soulless place full of loneliness and selfishness. Kieslowski says in his interview book, Kieslowski on Kieslowski that the most interesting thing in this film is perspective; the film is divided into three parts. First we see a boy, 19-year-old Tomek who is stalking a woman. We don't know anything about this woman, we only see what Tomek sees. He is disturbing the woman, trying to see her and ruin her relationships. Suddenly we see them together for a little while, the woman upsets Tomek and Tomek cuts his wrists. Now the third part starts, we see everything from the perspective of the woman. She starts to feel pity, yearning, compassion and love towards Tomek. But the camera never goes to the hospital with Tomek, we only see what the woman sees. And in the end the woman looks into the telescope - into herself.When watching A Short Film About Love as a film about the commandment Thou shalt not commit adultery, I interpreted it like this. In the film we see a lot of glass, windows, the glass could be the motive of the film. In the beginning Tomek breaks the window to get inside the warehouse. He also stalks the woman behind his window, and sees her behind her window. Also there is a glass shaped like a circle next to the woman's window. To me the glass, the window symbolizes the illusion. Magda (the woman) breaks Tomek's illusion of love, by showing that there is no love, that there is only sex. Then Tomek breaks Magda's idea of love, he breaks her hard shell. When I watched the episode I thought this was the "Adultery" they committed. They broke the illusion. Thou shalt not commit adultery.But before I had seen Dekalog, I had seen the film, so then I didn't think about the commandment, all I thought was the major subject the relation between love and loneliness. One sees love as a pure, beautiful thing, but isn't sure how to show it and the other sees love simply as sex, she doesn't think that love even exists. The viewer obviously sees that Tomek isn't alright, he is sick. He is in love. In our selfish, cold and cynical world love can't be anything else except a sickness. A small detail about this is when the godmother is watching Poland's beauty queen contest - is this love in our society?Krzysztof Kieslowski's series Dekalog and all his later films are born from the hands of this amazing trio: Kieslowski himself as a writer/director, Krzysztof Piesiewicz as the screenwriter and Zbigniew Preisner as the film score composer. I think Preisner was very important to Kieslowski. His music added a new level of beauty to his films, all of us who have seen The Double Life of Veronique, know what I mean. Preisner's music is honest, true and beautiful just as Kieslowski's films. Another important man in Kieslowski's production was the cinematographer, Sławomir Idziak who worked with him in Veronique, Blue and Dekalog: episode 5 (Thou shalt not kill). So Kieslowski's film A Short Film About Love isn't just a new version of Hitchcock's Rear Window, it is a picture of a lonely man, it's a moral study about our conception of love and also a very beautiful story.