Kieslowski
The latest issue of Books and Culture contains an article by Roy Anker on the filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski.
I haven’t seen much of Kieslowski’s work — only the Three Colours trilogy (twice) — but what I’ve seen I’ve greatly enjoyed. In fact, if you were to ask me to name my favourite movie, I just might say Red. Someday I hope to see The Decalogue and The Double Life of Veronique.
Anker sums up Kieslowski’s filmmaking this way:
He is a lean, minimalist storyteller; the old-fashioned word “gracile” fits best. His editing pares away anything that does not deepen the story’s emotional and narrative depth. Typically his films feel much longer than they are — not because they drag, but because they immerse viewers in the dense tangle of a world fraught with death, love, tragedy, hope, choice, change, and, very possibly, the love of God. Through all of this, in a chief feature of his accomplishment, Kieslowski stays remarkably nonverbal, trusting to events and images to arrest, disclose, and move. Which is exactly what his films do, over and over again, stories so simple and spare that they seem parables. People, events, conflict, silence, color, and music all brew up together to mesmeric effect. And always there are faces, lovely and otherwise, on which Kieslowski’s camera dwells as if to exhibit the soul.