Giving a Critical Look at the Ambiguities in Life

The only change Krzysztof Kieslowski has noticed since the liberation of Poland is that now he has a passport at home. Other than that nothing else is different and probably won’t be for two generations, he says.

That assessment of recent events in Poland, given the inner terrain that he explores in such films as “Decalogue,” a 10- hour work based on the Ten Commandments, is not surprising. In a country that is extremely politicized, Kieslowski casts a cold eye at the life inside the turmoil and sees the tortured soul of people deprived of options.

Criticized at home for not making more engaged movies, the 49-year-old director is more interested in the ambiguities of life. “There is a custom that films should be didactic. That’s a job for priests and teachers, not filmmakers.”

Nonetheless, Kieslowski has become increasingly recognized in international film circles, winning the European Film Award for “A Short Film About Killing.” Since he is not happy with the way any of his films has turned out, he is more than a bit baffled by all the fuss. “I always thought I’d be just a Polish provincial director, making Polish provincial films for a Polish provincial audience,” he says, obviously amused by the trick fate has played on him.

Kieslowski has no concept of planning a career and simply goes from one project to another. However, he has recently signed with an agent at ICM. He doesn’t seem to quite know why other than his friend Jerzy Skolimowski told him to do it. “ ‘You have to have an agent in Hollywood,’ he told me. So I did it. I don’t know what for. Maybe something in the future.”

Right now Kieslowski is a bit worried about the future. He is about to leave the comfort of home to make his next four films for French producers who have promised him a free hand, but he realizes “it’s kind of a lie.”

It isn’t that he might have to shoot in English that worries him. He says he doesn’t need to know the language he’s working in. “I remember watching ‘Manhattan’ without understanding a word, but I understood everything.”