No End

She's translating Orwell while he's a recently deceased Public Defendant - will they have chemistry? Well, no. This is the point in Kieslowski's work where I begin to understand less and less what's going on politically, and here the personal story isn't effective enough to win me over.

İstanbul Modern - İkinci İzleyiş 13.02.2014: Çift koldan anlattığı iki öyküyü, zorlama bir şekilde bağlamak yerine, birbirlerinden bağımsız şeklinde anlatmayı tercih etmesi cesaret işi. Kamera mekanlarda süzülerek gezerken yaratılan rüyavari atmosfer, aslında bu kadar sert gerçekliğe dair konuları işleyen böyle bir filme farklılık katıyor.

Nearly impossible to grade for me, as I'm still in the very early stages of delving into Polish history, and have no real context to place the events of this movie in. I'm sure a Pole, or someone more familiar with the real-life events that the film uses as a backdrop, would have a much stronger reaction to this film. As someone who came into the picture with only a passing familiarity with Solidarity and the Gdansk strikes, I wished that more time was spent with Antek and his grieving family.

One of my least favorite Kieslowski films. The politics were very confusing to me, I was far more interested in the deceased husband and his family. I'm sure there's supposed to be some kind of connection between the stories/themes but I'm afraid it was lost on me. Maybe you've got to be Polish to get it.

One of the best films of my favorite.

An intriguing but dry blend of personal and political grief. Very bleak and angry with well-handled metaphysical elements.

or at least it felt like it wasn't going to

Antek Zyro: "I died four days ago."

7???Zbigniew Preisner??????Kieslowski???????????????

yine dokundurdu bizlere reyis

Here Kieslowski is still searching for the right balance between metaphysical, political, and personal themes, and succeeds mainly when focusing on the latter of the three. To a surprising degree it feels like a warm-up for Three Colors Blue both thematically and aesthetically (albeit far more somber and pessimistic), and would make for an interesting companion piece as such (there are also vague hints of Wings of Desire, although these feel more coincidental).

Kieślowski‘s visuals are usually catchy but that’s not the case for this film. No End is vague and sad on all levels. Seems that nothing is achieved by no one under this totalitarian government and I think he meant it that way. However, as an individual who lives under a dictatorship, I wasn’t convinced or touched. Antek’s starting monologue is intriguing though.

No End is both expected and peculiar in Kieslowski's oeuvre as it contains both a humanistic drama and a legal/political one, but these two stories are separate and merely intertwine with a set of linked characters. One half displays the struggle of a woman grieving over her dead husband, while in the other a lawyer defends a man arrested for starting a strike. The "ghost story" of the first half brings Kieslowski's Catholicism to light which had otherwise stayed out of his work. Mostly typical.

82.000

Any decent transfers, any transfers ever...

There's a great atmosphere to this film, even if it doesn't always feel whole. As Kieslowski says himself about the film, the seams between the different stories are apparent. The seriousness with which death is dealt transitions well into the seriousness of the social situation in Poland in the early 80s. A bit more connection between the widow's story and the political story would help here, but I like the attempt to blend the personal and the political.

Fantastic acting, and some truly haunting images, particularly the close up of Ulla's face as she lights matches at the memorial.