In film as in music and writing, you have a short form and a long one.
The short form is intended to stroke you into a feeling only. It gives a taste where the other provides nourishment. One is a travelogue while the long form is expected to be a journey.
Right here, right in this very film is a semester of film school, because you can see a master of the short form reach into the long form which he would soon also master.
This is one of the ten short films sketched by his writing partner. His partner would set up the basic dramatic knot and Kieslowski would them fill it out with all sorts of cinematic riches. In the short form, it is enough that those riches are merely rich.
But you need to watch this, and then watch the longer version he made for Cannes and theatrical release. In the longer one, he imposed his will outside the scope of his partner and transformed the film into something else.
Watch this one first. What it does is evoke a tone, establish a song sung between two people. It leaves you in a way that short form can, in midleap armed only with the tone conveyed.
Now, my filmlife friend. Watch the long form: "A Short Film About Love." It adds 28 minutes. IMDb has it that the short version was derived from the long. But no. The short was created, and then the long.
The longer version has all the events of the short except the end, but is a completely transformed story. It has framing. It has ambiguities (we don't know whose suicide is the one at the beginning); it has internal fate (our heroine weaves, literally, her life and one of the threads is pulled from the stolen telescope).
Both have voyeurism, but the long transforms that into the filmmaker's stance in the manner of "Rear Window." They both have the spilled milk. But look at how the longer one evokes that afterward as the point at which the filmmaker enters the world of love.
In the long one, we the voyeurs in the theater become implicated. It is masterful, that fold.
In this short form, we the audience are placed in the other side. Kieslowski has been looking at us (in all ten) and showing us ourselves, and at the end of this, it is we who have the question she shows in her face.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
The short form is intended to stroke you into a feeling only. It gives a taste where the other provides nourishment. One is a travelogue while the long form is expected to be a journey.
Right here, right in this very film is a semester of film school, because you can see a master of the short form reach into the long form which he would soon also master.
This is one of the ten short films sketched by his writing partner. His partner would set up the basic dramatic knot and Kieslowski would them fill it out with all sorts of cinematic riches. In the short form, it is enough that those riches are merely rich.
But you need to watch this, and then watch the longer version he made for Cannes and theatrical release. In the longer one, he imposed his will outside the scope of his partner and transformed the film into something else.
Watch this one first. What it does is evoke a tone, establish a song sung between two people. It leaves you in a way that short form can, in midleap armed only with the tone conveyed.
Now, my filmlife friend. Watch the long form: "A Short Film About Love." It adds 28 minutes. IMDb has it that the short version was derived from the long. But no. The short was created, and then the long.
The longer version has all the events of the short except the end, but is a completely transformed story. It has framing. It has ambiguities (we don't know whose suicide is the one at the beginning); it has internal fate (our heroine weaves, literally, her life and one of the threads is pulled from the stolen telescope).
Both have voyeurism, but the long transforms that into the filmmaker's stance in the manner of "Rear Window." They both have the spilled milk. But look at how the longer one evokes that afterward as the point at which the filmmaker enters the world of love.
In the long one, we the voyeurs in the theater become implicated. It is masterful, that fold.
In this short form, we the audience are placed in the other side. Kieslowski has been looking at us (in all ten) and showing us ourselves, and at the end of this, it is we who have the question she shows in her face.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.