Left Field Cinema

Often the topic of genre is neglected in relation to the works of Poland’s greatest director, probably because the majority of Kieslowski’s films are difficult to categorise. From his first feature film The Scar to his last Three Colours Red, there is no one film that fits any particular genre except the broader categorisation of these films as “dramas” which is unhelpful in such matters as that term includes the widest range of films possible. Even Andrei Tarkovsky with his rebellion against genre managed to make War, Historical and Science Fiction films on occasion and only really escaped genre confines completely in the second half of his career. Kieslowski, perhaps without ever expressing a desire to avoid genre, managed to do so throughout his ten feature film career with significantly greater ease. The closest he ever came to a “genre picture” is his 1985 film No End, but even this film manages to combine genres in an unexpected way, merging a ghost story with a political drama and creating a worthy meditation on grief and loss in the process. It’s important to clarify that whilst No End can and indeed has been categorised in the past as both a ghost story and a political drama it is never presented as anything less than a Kieslowski film. To continue the Tarkovsky parallel: Stalker may well be classed as a Science Fiction film, but it is a secondary classification superseded by a primary classification – Stalker is a Tarkovsky film first and foremost. Kieslowski’s No End is presented to us like any other Kieslowski film; some of his most recognisable trademarks are clearly visible from the start: a female protagonist; distinctive music from the great Zbigniew Preisner (in their first collaboration and only Preisner’s second film as composer); bold use of colour filters in the imagery (in this case a cold bluey green hues); and a particular attention to the smaller details within any given scene. No End is a Kieslowski film first and foremost (and perhaps this is a genres all of its own), it is a ghost story second and a political drama third.

No End opens with a birds eye view shot of funeral candles in a graveyard, a darkened Sun set can barely be glimpsed in the distance, it is a typically visually arresting Kieslowski opening, death and the afterlife are seeded in this image, the sunset seeming like a distant heaven, whilst the graveyard is a clear indicator of death. We then move to a bedroom where we are presented with a monologue to camera from the dead husband of our protagonist Urszula played by Grazyna Szapolowska (perhaps best known as the female lead in Kieslowski’s later film A Short Film About Love). Her dead husband Antek talks about the experience of dying, his own personal experience of the event and how it felt to slip out of this world into the next as a result of a heart attack. His monologue interrupted by the phone ringing and his wife answers blissfully unaware of the ghostly presence in the room. From here the story begins to take hold, Antek was a defence lawyer and he died young leaving his wife and child behind as well as a big political case, (he was defending a worker who organised a strike). Poland is under martial law and as such Solidarity is forbidden. What follows is a dreamy and often powerful examination of what we leave behind when we die. Antek’s death affects both the lives of his clients and co-workers and his family and friends. Urszula tries to escape her grief through distractions but nothing works for her, the memory of Antek is still strong with her. It could be interpreted that the ghost of Antek we see throughout the film is actually the personification of grief, grief represented by the individual whose been lost. Grief lingers and influences our decisions, it affects us in ways we can not see or understand. Likewise the ghost of Antek in the film influences events: At one point causing Urszula’s car to stop whilst she is driving and in doing so ensuring that Urszula avoids a fatal car accident. At another point Urszula is considering which lawyer should take over her husband’s case, she thinks about asking an older gentleman called Labrador, the next day she finds a question mark next to his name. Within the narrative frame-work Antek directly affects events, but in one interpretation everything that occurs is just coincidence or the subconscious behaving differently due to the stress of loss. Filmicly the Ghost is presented extremely well, instead of opting for any kind of double-exposure image trickery or special lighting or even special optical effects, Kieslowski instead presents the man as he is, he informs us at the start that he is dead and then we’re asked to accept that for the remainder of the film, and we do accept it because we are not stupid people. It’s a much subtler method of presenting spirits of the dead and would always be my own preference when working outside the confines of a comedy or children’s film. Antek appears like any other person in the film. At one point we see him stroke a black dog that is aware of his presence. We then we see the dog jumping up at Urszula car when no one is visible inside. At another point later in the film there is a pan across a court room, we see him sitting quietly at the back with slightly more light on him than the rest of the occupants, it’s one of many moments in No End that are easily missed on first viewing. The dog has direct contact with Antek, but so to does Urszula, she goes to a Hypnotist to help her forget about him, when she has been hypnotised she sees her husband, they communicate by finger patterns, each of them mirroring the others as they raise and retract various fingers. As the scene concludes the hypnotist catches his finger in a mouse trap, one of the many vague connections Kieslowski presents us with to indicate that the ghost is real, was Antek punishing the hypnotist for trying to erase him or was his appearance to Urszula just a dream? Thankfully we’re never given a clear answer and Kieslowski leaves truth to the eye of the beholder. As the hypnotist scene ends Urszula lies and says she’s forgotten Antek, in the next scene we see her fantasising about him and masturbating in bed. Nothing seems to work.

The film does have some failings and it is far from perfect, at one point Urszula discovers nude pictures of her with the faces cut out, pictures of her that she didn’t know Antek had been aware of. The cutting of the faces indicates he was angry about them but he’d never mentioned it to her, this moment hints at a possible direction the film could have taken, exploring the pain of discovering a lovers secrets after they’ve passed away. This would be covered with more success in his later film Three Colours Blue, but here it is unfortunately skirted over. Urszula’s character arc is rather skittish and weak, she barely develops as a person, there is the possibility of her helping those who her husband helped, but ultimately she leaves that to other men. Kieslowski was always under attack for his portrayal of women in his films, the sexual dynamic in A Short Film About Love is often considered sexually dubious, whilst the female to male nudity ratio is quite unbalanced towards the female (not that Kieslowski is the only film maker guilty of this), Urzula at one point willingly prostitutes herself to a man with similar hands to her dead husband. The ghost of Antek watches on as she does so, whilst this very masculine interpretation of how a woman might deal with grief smacks of fantasy more than reality, Kieslowski pulls the scene away from a pit of sexism with the subsequent conversation as Urszula post copious proceeds to explain her feelings to the British male she has just slept with, but does so in Polish knowing that he won’t understand a word. (The British male is Bizarrely played by Danny Webb, an ITV drama regular and played the sole survivor of Alien 3). The use of a Brit is a clever contortion of a negative stereotype although Eastern European sex tourism is seen as something unsavoury and vulgar, this one-way confession where the confessor is safe from ever having her thoughts repeated is a tender and delicate moment and one of the finest in the film, as the Brit is genuinely infatuated with Urszula and wants to understand what she is saying to him.

As with almost all of Kieslowski’s films, it is the blending of magic and reality that affords No End such a memorable status. The political drama is so sober, the grief is so painfully and acutely explored; the realism is there to be seen but with that realism comes the supernatural, the fantastic, the paranormal. What is remarkable about Kieslowski’s work is how naturally the supernatural and the natural sit together within his canvas. It can be attributed in part to his photography, although he often uses grimy and gritty locations, he never shoots them from a social realist perspective but instead with an eye for the transcendental. The blending of first and third person perspectives for example as Urszula runs up the stairs in one scene, or the cold light that permeates most of the apartments and courtrooms that make up the films internal spaces.

In conclusion if we return to the subject of genre then it’s clear to see that this is a Kieslowski film first and foremost, if proof were needed then it can be seen during one scene where Urszula speaks of her pain, and scratches her feet resting on the sofa, covered by tights, she picks at them, the camera holds on this image. Only Kieslowski could make such an action seem so mysterious, only Kieslowski would choose to focus on such an innocuous image and in doing so make the scene unforgettable.

M.Dawson