Tomek (Olaf Lubaszenko), a young introverted man working at a Warsaw post office, spends his evenings watching his beautiful neighbour Magda (Grażyna Szapołowska) through a telescope. Both are lonely in their own way. Their paths cross, and the woman humiliates her vulnerable stalker. She subsequently recognises her error, and the initial premise is flipped upside down.
Midnight Sun Film Festival’s 1989 guest of honour, Krzysztof Kieślowski, was at the very peak of his artistic career at this point. All the skills learned as a documentarian are on display, but the gimmickry of his late-period, somewhat self-conscious art-house phase is still conspicuously absent, even though the colour-coding of Three Colours: Red (1994) is already beginning to emerge.
Love is the most difficult subject possible—both in life and in film—but this clinically detached, everyday anti-melodrama, which hides its grand emotions deep inside with Bressonian coolness, strikes a chord in the soul of anyone who has ever experienced moments of unfulfilled longing. The director observes, monitors and captures the psychologically complex composition, living in a state of constant flux, with incomprehensible ease. Nothing feels superfluous or redundant. Bodily fluids flow tragically, window lights flicker on and off in the suburban night, and two people encounter one another—one way or another.
Lauri Timonen