Customer Reviews

Weekend Stories [VHS]

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Although I tend to write some comment on the series of Zanussi's _Weekend_Stories_, I have to confess that I only saw one, _Soul_Sings_ so far. However, to conclude the style from the five Zanussi's films I just saw at the Golden Horse Film Festival in Taiwan this year, it's very easy to be attracted by the director's way of telling stories via camera.

_Soul_Sings_ is a story about a rather simple moral lesson--if you help those in need, you will have rewards some day. The protagonist is a substitute tenor vocalist who just came to Warsaw because of the contract with the orchestra. At the freezing and raining night before his public performance at the New Year's concert, which is regarded as the touchstone for him to be a successful vocalist, his neighbor, an old lady asks him to take her dog to veterinarian. Taking the risk of catching a cold, he hesitates at first but finally decides to give hand to the old lady and her dog badly-illed. Unfortunately, he find that he loses his voice the next morning when he wakes up. Can the old lady's gratitude for him save him from the end of his career as a distinguished vocalist? You've got to watch it/them on your own.

One thing that makes Zanussi a bit different from his compatriot, Kieslowski is that he holds a brighter and positive attitude toward the challenges of human beings. (That is, there is a hope where there is a life. Zanussi personally "admitted" this as well.) Such a difference simply makes Zanussi's works easier to watch but still with the exactly the same power and density as found in Kieslowski's.

If you have any opportunity to have access to Krzysztof Zanussi's films, you will not regret. And I think it's a good start from his _Weekend_Stories_, not only because they are shorter but also mature.

I love the Decalogue, but I could never watch every film in a single sitting. With this, each story went by as quickly as I could put them into the player. This doesn't necessarily mean they were fluff, however, or that I felt the viewer was "let off" easily. The subtitles run a little on VHS and I wish I could have purchased it on DVD. The cinematography is breathtaking so maybe it's a good thing each is only 50 minutes long, all without a single car chase! Each story is also different from all the others so there's a sense of unpredictability. But what's important is that when it's all said and done, these are films that can be appreciated by most westerners and not just eastern cinema buffs. They can't watch and not love at least one of them!!!