"The church wants us to follow one particular set of rules this aim conflicts with the interests of the church it also weakens the position of the church people dislike being guided each of us knows our way in life we don't want others to say go only in that direction" "why not choose a different direction?" " What's the name of this man?" " Krzysztof Kieslowski" " his parents' first names?" " Roman and Barbara" " his mother's maiden name?" " Szonert" " date and place of birth?" " 27 june 1941 in warsaw the patient is a middle-aged man he smokes and drinks coffee and leads an irregular life his job is very harmful to his health and it demands that he often works under great pressure having led a life like this for many years" "he now has problems with his circulatory system it's inevitable i have to talk about a person i only know by his birthday some handwriting samples he has a talent for organizing and a good sense of direction and space" "he has a good memory and he uses his memory well he has a refined aesthetic sense he is very intelligent he can enter into the spirit" "of several people at the same time he is a flexible" "and warm-hearted person" "women adore him he has a quiet facade so nobody suspects him of being impatient when he begins something he wants immediate results i think he has succumbed to the temptation which has existedsince creation who is god?" "The lord or myself?" "Right now he finds himself in life's waiting room so to speak he is in a phase of his search for the goal he has pursued all his life" " are you ready krzysztof?" " Yes but how will we do it?" "You're the director you've been my assistant jacek has made a couple of features with me and even more documentaries misio is our sound engineer bring the microphone over here can you hear me?" "yes misio has also worked with me for a long time you know me well so i can tell you things i wouldn't tell others we can discuss more meaningful and personal topics the drawback is that you know my answers already" "so i'll try to give you new answers to surprise you no matter what the truth is" "we are in pore by visiting our photographer jacek petrycki this is where we meet to talk about all sorts of things first i'd like to hear what happened in your life from let's say your birth until film school" " how much time have we got?" " Be brief" " okay i was born - where?" "In warsaw" "is that all?" "Then what happened?" "I don't remember my earliest childhood does anybody?" "Later i moved all the time from one small town to another before leaving i'd sit on top of trunks and furniture or on a train or in a lorry" "then my father got tuberculosis so we tried to find a place where there was a sanatorium or where the air was cleaner" "father talked to me often i was frightened of him" "not because he would hit me but because he was an authority" "i didn't like school at all i dreamed of becoming a stoker an older friend of mine skowron was a stoker i dreamed of shoveling coal into a furnace but my parents were not at all keen on the idea" "so they tried to find a school for me wisely my father got me into a training school for firemen a clever trick i soon realized i didn't want to be a fireman trying it for real would also have put me off being a stoker" "when did you go to warsaw?" "My family arrived much later i went first because a relative ran school for stage technicians soon after my younger sister entered the same school my parents still lived 350 kms from warsaw my father died when i was still at school" "how did you react?" "It was hard" " did you cry?" " Yes" "the school was incredibly good it made us intellectually aware it gave us a choice and taught us life is more than just practicalities such as eating sleeping and having a roof over one's head that there is also another kind of food" "food for the soul or the mind so i decided to be a stage director than a scene painter but entering this course required a degree in another field i didn't want to study history polish or sociology i wanted to do something related to stage directing" "so i decided to study film directing to give me an insight that would benefit my stage directing later to me film school was not a final goal but a stage in life it would help me become a stage director" "i tried to pass the entry exam but i failed" " how many times did you try?" " Three times but you persisted?" "Yes it became a point of honour for me if those bastards didn't want me i'd show them" "after film school you made those bleak black and white films the world we lived in was very bleak" "it wasn't black and white just black or rather grey this is how things looked in lodz where the film school is lodz is a very photogenic town because it's dirty and shabby like this shed but it was an entire town and somehow a whole world" "peoples' faces look like the walls of lodz tired sad faces with a dramatic meaninglessness in their eyes lives spent stomping in the same spot never getting anywhere" "perhaps we were the first postwar film generation and i say we because there were so many of us who tried to describe the world as it was we showed only micro worlds the titles suggest this the school the factory" "if these mini observations were pieced together they" "would describe life in poland why did you want to do this?" "Living in an undescribed world is hard you have to try it to know what it feels like it's like having no identity your problems and sufferings disappear they disintegrate to put it more radically you feel completely cut off from other people" "you cannot refer to anything because nothing has been described and properly named you are alone but our descriptive tools were used for propagandist purposes theoretically perhaps our ideas were great but at the end they would always be pointing a gun at you" "we lived according to ideals fraternity equality and justice but none of these things existed least of all justice communism used the term freedom but we were not free you couldn't state your opinion in public privately we could but in russia you risked being sent to siberia" "to die a slow death felling the frozen trees documentaries deal with people who live real lives people who trusted us and told us the truth about their lives but this truth was often used against them the more invisible our tools were" "the bigger the danger that we would end up somewhere where we shouldn't be with our cameras and microphones namely in the place where one has a right to be left alone happy or tormented by pain in silence" "can you film real death and use it as a documentary?" "Can you show a dying person?" "Is one not entitled to solitude?" "Ought one not to have the right to experience a death that harmonizes with one's own inner principles" "or with one's own course of life" "you made the film talking heads have you got any film left jacek?" "So i can talk with my head everything's fine "talking heads"... we made a kind of experiment that was quite unlike tv where they lie in wait to question an unprepared person we asked" "100 persons the following questions some days before when were you born?" "Who are you?" "What matters most to you?" "What are your wishes?" "It was the year 1979 and i believed that a portrait of 100 persons of which 40 appear in the film could show a common portrait of our mental condition i'm a history teacher the freedom to decide my own fate matters most to me" "i suppose i want the same as everyone else freedom in the broad sense not just freedom for the strong it may seem unrealistic but what i want in life is a genuine introduction of democracy and tolerance these people didn't precisely know" "what they wanted and they didn't believe their wants could be realized such as living in a free normal democratic society" "and being able to make decisions that you are responsible for only a drunkard said i'm alright i am a chemical engineer now i'm an alcoholic" "what do i want?" "Nothing everything is just fine what do i want?" "Calmness you can only aspire to it the path is interesting who am i?" "A retired film director that's the truth now yes" "i'm 100 years old what do you want?" " What?" " What do you want?" "How much more do i want?" "To live longer much longer" "did you have pleasant dreams?" "No i didn't sleep till six look do you see that?" "The dog scratched my eye i came here driving like this" "could you drive a car?" "Yes but i lost my sense of distance i can't see where that branch is" "i think i've got it" "what do you want me to draw?" "It looks like prime minister oleksy they might resent that should he be holding something?" "He needs a perspective let's suppose he is in moscow" "let's say he's reading gazeta wyborcza" "it's a bird do you want more animals?" "Yes a small dog or a cat a little cat that wants to get the bird let's have the bird eat the cat the little cat sits here yes the cat stretches its paws" "lies in wait the cat is there it's grey" "the film "calm" is a story with a plot structure not very moving maybe but still at the same time it was made" "as a documentary hi!" "My name is socha hello my name is gralak" "they say you've been to prison i got five years but did only three it could happen to anyone" " say hello he's new - my name is gralak" "i'm the fireman let me show you around" "it was a film about a guy who wanted little or nothing may be that much" "but even that was asking too much a woman children a place of my own always having dinner at home" "only holding back a bit for cigarettes" "work then home the woman the children doing homework" " there - there!" "Television" " channel 2?" " I'll watch anything the film is about striking strikes did not "exist" in the communist system the rulers were embarrassed by the frankness of the film the propaganda never mentioned strikes" "what happened?" " We're not working - why?" "They're screwing us the film was not shown for three years i had to edit it but that didn't ruin it the main idea of the film and its atmosphere were intact otherwise i wouldn't have edited it" "he's frightened how can they sack them?" "Like that they scatter them like chaff" "but what have they done?" "The interesting thing was that the censor often said i'm on your side i share your views"" "but those bastards won't let me okay the film"" "go away don't worry i'll come the film was important because we got across that untangible thing which censorship can't destroy a kind of secret metaphysics" "look look!" "Did you see that?" "No there's nothing there it hasn't begun yet where does it come from?" "It's the third time i fix it then the horses appear followed by a test pattern" "in the film calm a motif appears which became an important element in your films horses" " what was their significance?" " Well maybe a longing for the quality they possess they can do as they want" "they can run free and have no obligations this symbolism would be quite straight forward but the horses turn up at unlikely times" "as if they were a metaphysical element just as they appeared here a moment ago" "to this day i have the feeling that as a child i saw an elephant in the street i'm sure of it i was told that one didn't see an elephant in glubczyce a small town in western poland i saw it in the town square" "how did it get there?" "Was it?" "A mystery a deja vu a prophesy?" "A belief rather that there are more things in heaven and earth" "not long ago i met an italian who had had an experience just like that of the woman in the double life of veronique one night he woke up in a fright and couldn't go back to sleep next day a colleague gave him" "a photo of an american rock band he was in the photo but he had never been to america later he was told that the singer had died the night" "he had woken up afraid that something awful had happened" "a mysterious feeling" "obscurity secrecy always exist" "also right now" " how are things?" " At last the weather is warm" "this reminds me of camera buff here where the costumes hang there used to be a screen overthere was a projection room we would show 16 and 8mm films there were projectors nobody uses this equipment the enthusiasm is gone too" "it was full of reels of film which we developed ourselves colour films 16 and 8 mm we had reels of film everywhere those were great years now we have no real enthusiasts" " i'm glad that you came back - hello during the festival i realized that we cannot go on making films about anniversaries" " but you got a prize - so?" "We'll make simple films about human beings and their feelings once during that epoch our boss lent us his volga we took our cameras and drove off to film a meeting" " the boss wanted it like that - yes it was a put-up job we filmed the meeting and they gave us a camera and film we needed funding everybody knew that the cultural houses were run by the rulers the rulers enjoyed performing" "if they had top party visitors we would put on our film in this way we helped to build up the local rulers' authority they were proud to be part of the real world" " you made your own films too?" " Yes exactly" "take me to careful" "the guy in camera buff had a krasnogorsk camera we have a krasnogorsk camera" "somewhere too" " now i see - find the handle camera buff is from 1978 it was a simple story about a guy who was about 30 he loves his new born daughter and he films her with his camera" "she has peed" " no you can't film her naked!" " Why not?" "She's a girl but he started filming other things too everything that happened around him" " what's going on?" " Sorry sir what are you doing mr." "Mosz?" "You could say that the film shows the camera's power and how it can ruin everything dear to the protagonist his family life the relationship to his wife the love for his daughter pick it up!" "Is this how it'sdone in films?" "Are you crazy?" "I remember one scene in particular although it didn't come off too well it's message became symbolic when the man realizes how his critical film can be misused it can be used againstthe people he has filmed he decides to overexpose the film" "you're overexposing it you're spoiling it!" "Then run after it run!" "It was a desperate attempt to disclaim his responsibility this goes for me too in the sense that i often feel like leaving my films unfinished" "when the protagonist turns the camera on himself he realizes that one can only portray the world through oneself" "she woke up at four in the morning i ate some bread it was one year ago" "she was in pain and she was sweating a lot i carried her all the way if you were to turn the camera on yourself" "what would you say?" "The first words of your story i turn the camera on myself in all my films not all the time perhaps but often but i do it in a way so nobody can see it and although i want you us to be successful in our work" "i won't reveal it" " has anything happened?" " Well i gave an elderly couple a lift we drove for a while talking the way one does lucky thing it rained yesterday then she said it doesn't depend on us she was a typical old woman the lord decides these things" "if he wants it to rain it will rain if he wants a draught there will be a draught" "to this old woman everything happens according to god's will do you believe that everything happens by chance?" "No it depends on the sum of many different things" "that happen at the same time it depends on our will and our fate which control us but we can change fate a bit chance is not that important it has more to do with the path we choose than who we are" "what has caused you to be here in poreby on the veranda?" "There are several causes if we decide to tell stories whether we write them down or film them" "we must know who we are and where we come from in a general and an immediate sense to be able to tell stories and to understand peoples' lives" "i remember when i was 14 years old and went to school my history teacher was a very strict man we were scared of him i came directly from the training school for firemen" "i had misspelled history and chemistry in my exercise book when my history teacher saw it he said sighing you would be better off as a fireman i decided i never wanted to be spoken to like that again" " and it hasn't happened since?" " Never this kind of accident can change your life completely a person may lose a leg or an eye yes but if you lose a leg an eye or a hand it will only affect who you are you've lost a hand or an eye" "but how you are hasn't changed if you have been a real bastard you're a bastard with one eye if you have been a good person you're a good person with one eye that's all" "i've one good characteristic i'm a pessimist so i always imagine the worst always to me the future is a black hole we have talked about fear if i fear something it's the future it frightens me" "the place i have in life is better than the one i deserve undeservedly i have a better place i am in a row further up than i have deserved" " do you like sations?" " Yes but i hate filming them why are you attracted by them?" "They are nameless you are always anonymous here" "blind chance is three stories about the same young person it all depends whether he can make his train in time or whether the police will get him and keep him from going this decides his life which later moves in three directions" "he is the same but each time he finds himself in a new situation he is the same person but politically he ends up on two different sides in the first two stories he joins sides politically in the third story he is politically neutral" "he dies in the third story and survives in the others" "why is there so much politics in your films?" "Because we were and are surrounded by politics when i made these films i found that politics were meaningful that politics affected us and that we could affect the political process it had to do with the hopes we had in europe and in poland" "even in a communist country we hoped things could improve we didn't realize that communism could destroy itself our only hopes were for things to get a bit easier to be a bit more free to travel and to speak" "the audience felt that these films were about themselves in the 70's the audience saw themselves on the screen they felt connected they reacted and brought about upheavals first one and then the next the result of the next was" "that we got what we wanted what did we get?" "Practically just shit we got what we wanted but it's just a caricature of our goals and that's putting it nicely if you had political influence would you do something drastic?" "Tear up clothes wave a flag?" "You could address the public today anybody can say anything and nobody can punish you before you risked something now you can say anything so what?" " You could be a leader - no that's not my job" " but if you could?" " No i don't want to be a leader i don't want the responsibility that's your train isn't it?" "See you then" "did you do anything interesting?" "Yes i dreamed i could fly i started under a tower then i rose and flew" "in the most natural way to a tree there was a tree there you see" "the decalogue is ten films each film relates somehow to one of the ten commandments when we wrote the series in 1483-84 we wanted to brush up those ten well-written sentences god exists" "it's very simple if you believe that is and you believe that god exists?" "Yes who is he?" "I remember my first communion and my first confession clearly i found it very moving and very cleansing i think this experience sprang from a kind of childish naivety" "i was eight or six years old naivety is a good thing you can get so close to what you believe without second thoughts or sitting attached i know a lot of people who are happy because they believe" "we need a point of reference something to refer to which can be the final goal of everyting we do god is such a reference point if he exists" "i think i have close ties to god they are very personal they are private they are my own ties" "i ask him to let things happen and then certain events do happen i ask him to give me" "what i need at that moment first of all i ask him to give me a clear intellectual overview but i also ask him to give me feelings that i need i ask him to let certain things happen" "sometimes he does sometimes he doesn't" "do you think that people who do wrong in this world are punished in the next world?" "Is there a next world at all?" "It is a beautiful secret that we shall never know it's good that it remains a secret" "5th commandment thou shalt not kill" "it didn't work" "i can't start shooting today it's raining" " you are mistaken - in what?" "Everything you are mistaken in everything" "man is not evil it's not true" " yes it is - he may be weak that boy was he your friend or brother?" " My brother - how old is he?" " He's 15 - has he been a junkie for long?" " How did you know?" " I guessed it easily" "in "red" you have left room for many possible interpretations" "do you have your own interpretation?" "No i accept them all that's the way my mind works i gather a lot of interpretations and i say "choose one"" "you went to the west for a while what did you miss abroad?" "Whether i'm making films abroad or not i feel like a stranger i'm never happy abroad i always want to go home you particularly dislike america why?" "What i don't like about america is the pursuit of empty talk combined with a very high degree of self-satisfaction if i ask my american agent how he is he'll say i'm extremely well not okay or well it has to be extremely well" "i'm not extremely well i'm not at all well putting it in english i'm so-so do you think western civilization is coming to an end?" "We are clearly going through a cultural crisis at the moment it's a phase where we are trying to distinguish values of life people are looking for a solution and perhaps they will find it but the radicality of the search" "will change their view of life so there is a cultural crisis?" "I never denied it there is a general crisis but it's not the end of the world" " the crisis is total?" " And so what?" " That is the end of the world - you may think so but i don't you say there is a general crisis but everything is fine" "no the crisis means that the world is now at the bottom of a sinus curve in the nature of things it will now rise and fall again later what is the most important part of this process?" "If i knew the answer to that i wouldn't be sitting here but in a president's chai presiding i'd be telling everyone what they should do to be happy but i don't know knowing is not my business" "not knowing is" "it used to be your business it still is because i write scripts and always make appointments someday perhaps a film will be made based on my writings" " will you make it yourself?" " No i hope that i in some devious way have laid a trap for myself so i can stay in it forever" "what will you do with your life?" "Nothing i sit on a chair or a bench" "i sleep well and when i bathe i wash in order to enjoy life not in order to make a film" "right now your watch is our main character everything's okay" " can we do it like this?" " It only reflects the light" " sure?" "Shall we do it again?" " Yes we'll do it again what will you do with your life?" "Nothing right now i'm writing a film manuscript i have appointments maybe a film will be made on it" "perhaps it will lead to something!" "We'll see" "what do you do on weekdays?" "I don't just work on sundays" " tell us about the bench - which bench?" "Why do you sit on it?" "That was just something i said" " about your watch you said - i have no bench" " tell us about your bath - which bath?"