1979 Polish, 7.5/10 IMDB, Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski
A drama of an individual’s new found passion of motion camera that slowly consumes him, until it costs him his dear family and overrides his meaning of happiness. The film in turn consumes the viewers with its illustrative making as the character unearths his passion that he never knew existed in him before.
Filip, buys a camera to film his to-be born child. It slowly turns to a hobby when he films his friend driving his van while his friend’s mom is watching from her window upstaris. Finally it turns to Filip’s passion, when his friend’s mom passes away, and his friend says to him that, his mom lives in the film Filip shot. These words sound simple on the face of it, but as the film progresses, you are rooting for Filip to scale heights, even makes us turn a blind eye to the toll it has on his personal life.
The wife wants to stick to the peace and quiet life, while Filip’s hunger to embrace the new found love grows in magnitude, as he discovers he has a flair for it. That’s the life of an artist and you are made to realize, what’s inside of an artist would inevitably erupt.
The scenarios on producer chucking away the director from the editing room, as his boss who funds the films enforces his rights to mutilate Filip’s artwork. The interview with the film maker Krzysztof Zanussi, reveals true wisdom there- ‘We are not alchemist of the soul, capable of changing lives’.
Film making parts his way from his wife and child’s. As she moves out, he says, ‘finally something is working for me’, which implies he wasn’t content with the peace and quiet that he presumed he had before his motion camera could take over his life. May be its an inner quest, a calling, that an artist experiences. His passion turning in to an obsession is well defined when he fixes the frame even when his wife walks away leaving him.
The young man who assists Filip in making films says, Filip had nothing few months ago and now that his wife and child had left him he has so much going on his professional life. Filip is mad at him for saying that, but he isn’t any sad. The family’s burden is off his shoulders may be, for the creator in him to evolve, you are let to think.
Is it that the passion of art would never die, no matter who is with you and who is not? The final shot when he takes his 16mm camera standing next to the window, one is left to think he is going to throw the camera outside, but then that’s the conditioning of Indian entertainment industry that’s playing on me I thought. Filip’s obsession makes him turn the camera to himself and self-captures the narrative of the opening shot of the film, where his wife is in labor.
The metaphoric shot of an eagle preying a chicken, is it him feasting over his new found passion? And its placement in the wife’s dream, is that she has some premonitions, that she is going to fall prey to her husband’s obsession? One can keep contemplating, I guess.
A Good watch.