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5.0 out of 5 stars
Devotion to ideas at the expense of emotionalism, and intellectualism without overt passions, July 21, 2009
This review is from: Krzysztof Zanussi (DVD)
About the director:
Krzysztof Zanussi, (born 17 June 1939 in Warsaw, Poland) is a Polish producer and film director. He is a professor of European film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland where he conducts a summer workshop. He is also a professor at the Silesian University in Katowice.
Zanussi studied physics at Warsaw University (Uniwersytet Warszawski) and philosophy at the Jagiellonian University (Uniwersytet Jagiellonski) in Kraków. He is the director of the Polish Film Studio TOR and has received several prizes and awards, including the David di Donatello Prize of the Accademia del Cinema Italiano, the Cavalier's Cross of the Polonia Restituta Order, and the Cavalier de L'Ordre des Sciences et Lettres.
He graduated the Lodz film school with Death of a Provincial (1966), which won an award at the Venice Film Festival. He emerged as a director/screenwriter in the late '60s and early '70s, primarily working for Polish television, until the '80s, when his association with the Solidarity movement forced him into exile in West German and Swiss productions. One of his films, The Catamount Killing (1974), was shot in English, and his work since the mid-'80s has seen wider international financing and distribution.
Krzysztof Zanussi has written On editing an amateur film (1968), Discourse on an amateur film (1978) and the memoirs, memoirs Time to Die (1999). He appeared as himself in Camera Buff (1979), a film about an amateur film maker, directed by his friend Krzysztof Kieslowski.
Zanussi's work is defined by its devotion to ideas at the expense of emotionalism, and intellectualism without overt passions, which did not prevent his fall from grace with the government during Solidarity's temporary defeat in the mid-'80s.
About the movies:
Bilans kwartalny (A Woman's Decision)
The main character is a bookkeeper, 40, who lives a quiet, uninteresting life with her husband and son of school age. She realizes that soon she won't be needed much at home as the boy grows up and the relationship with her husband crumbles. It's only when an embezzlement is discovered at the office and she stands up to her management, that she realizes life has more to offer. She meets a well-off former classmate, married to an American. Then she meets Jacek and starts contemplating possibilities of a new start. She discovers love for the first time, but turns to old ways rather than to break loose.
Rok spokojnego slonca (The Year of the Quiet Sun)
Shortly after WWII an American soldier (Norman) and a Polish refugee (Emilia) fall in deep love. Eventually he will return to USA and both expect that she will soon follow him. Emilia's mother is sick but would recover by available medicine. Somehow the mother but not Emilia knows that there will only be one ticket. Realising that Emilia would never abandon her, the mother secretly throws away the daily doses given her by Emilia - and dies. Somehow Emilia discovers her mother's sacrifice and refuses to benefit from it. She gives the ticket to a female friend and retreats to a cloister, living like the nuns except not wearing their dress and not having given a promise to stay forever. For decades she will apparently live in peace. Then a nun tells her that Norman has died and has bequeathed his fortune to Emilia. The nun suggests that Emilia gives the money to the cloister. But from that moment Emilia's religious devotion flies away. She only thinks of going as speedily as possible to America to see Norman's grave.
Spirala (Spiral)
The movie exemplifies the plight of the solitary individual living disharmoniously with himself and those around him. Zanussi follows the tortured protagonist with a jerky handheld camera through the maze of rooms and characters in a ski resort.
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