BOOK REVI EWS KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI S DECALOGUE SERIES: THE PROBLEM OF THE PROTAGONISTS AND THEIR SELF-TRANSCENDENCE Christopher Garbowski East European Monographs, No. CDLII, distributed by Columbia University Press, 1996. 121pp. Of the critical efforts to grapple with Krzysztof Kieslowski s films, Christopher Garbowski s ambitious attempt to deal with the aesthetic and interpretive complexities of the Decalogue series is the most impressive. Despite its brevity and focus on one multi-part work, the author s analysis is extensive and intense and provides insight into Kieslowski s message and the brilliance of his aesthetic. Until now, only a handful of books about Kieslowski has been produced, most of them in Polish. The majority, moreover, are collections of interviews. Kieslowski bez konca (Kieslowski without End), published by Skorpion in Warsaw in 1994, is an example. Another, more ambitious collection consists of articles published in French film journals and subsequently translated for the prestigious Film naswiecie (World Film). Even in this collection the authors of the articles do not attempt to analyse Kieslowski s films in a systematic manner. The only English language text, Kieslowski on Kieslowski, edited by Danusia Stok, again, is a collection of interviews and loose conversations with the filmmaker. In none of these texts does the director comment at length on the meaning of his films. Rather like a Hitchcock or a Hawks, he prefers to discuss issues of film production. Many articles in Polish, French and British publications present an eclectic assortment of ideas and opinions on all his films. Garbowski includes most of these relevant arti cles and discussions concerning Kieslowski s films in his bibliography. It must be pointed out that Garbowski researches his subject thoroughly. He draws on many articles written in Polish, French and English and published in film journals, philosophical studies and literary publications. The author includes quotations from all the available sources published on Kieslowski in these three languages. In this respect, Garbowski remains true to the European research tradition according to which the writing of a book on the subject of film (where film is treated as a serious discipline) has to be preceded by extensive research on its every aspect. CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FILM STUDIES REVUE CANADIENNE D ÉTUDES CINÉMATOGRAPHIQUES 84 Volume 6 No. 2 VOLUME 6 NO. 2 PP 84-94
To my knowledge, only Flicks Books in Great Britain is preparing a collection of essays written by Polish and British authors. Lucid Dreams: The Films of Krzysztof Kieslowski, edited by Paul Coates, is scheduled to appear in 1997. Garbowski s book could be regarded as initiating a systematic analysis of Kieslowski s films, and it is a strong start. A graduate of KUL (the Catholic University of Lublin in Poland), Garbowski employs a religious perspective in his analysis as well as situating the filmmaker within the political and cultural context of socialist Poland. In that country, religion was, on the one hand, officially banned by the totalitarian regime, and, on the other, more or less openly practised by every group of Polish society. Never theless, while tracing an obvious link between the Ten Commandments and Kieslowski s Decalogue, Garbowski points to the general interpretation of the series by many critics in Poland and abroad, who interpreted the series as a moral parable and did not concentrate on the strictly religious aspects of the films. In referring to Kieslowski as the films author, Garbowski presents the director not only as a brilliant and worldrenown creator of art cinema, but also as a thinker, a political artist, and a documentary filmmaker. This latter designation is given special emphasis as Garbowski situates Kieslowski in the combative Polish documentary tradition and the late-seventies Polish movement of the cinema of moral concern. Garbowski compares him with his senior in Polish cinema, Andrzej Wajda, exploring, for instance, the influences the two had on each other, such as that of Kieslowski s first feature, The Scar (1976), on Wajda s fam - ous Man of Iron (1981). Although slight in size, the book s four chapters present a systematic analysis of each episode of Decalogue. The most interesting portion of the book is devoted to the issue of the protagonist in film overall, and in Kieslowski s films, in particular. Garbowski discusses the theoretical aspects of the notion of the protagonist in chapter one, The Decalogue Series and the Protagonist. He notes that film scholars have not theorized the idea of the protagonist. He thinks Seymour Chatman s Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film has presented the most extensive treatment and yet, his approach is general and does not sufficiently dis - tinguish the film hero from the liter - ary one. Of the various theoretical approaches represented by semioticians and film critics (James Naremore, Jurij Lotman and Alan Casebier are mentioned), Garbowski concentrates on Bakhtin and his dialogical approach to the protagonist. Bakhtin s theoretical paradigm in Problems of Dostoevsky s Poetics appeals to Garbowski in his analysis of Kieslowski s films because, like Dostoevsky, Kieslowski allows the CJFS / RCEC 85
characters in his films to confront each other with their points of view, with the narrator having no permanent knowledge over the protagonists. In chapter two, Space, Time and the Protagonist, the author analyses the representation of the physical body, which, according to Bakhtin, is the organizing centre of space in a work of art. Garbowski concentrates his analysis on the presentation of the body in the frame, in the point-of-view shots of the protagonists, and in shot-reverseshot sequences in each episode of the Decalogue films. Of special interest is his analysis of the hybrid version of point-of-view shot/reverse shots and their functions in particular episodes. The second part of this chapter, Space Outside the Protagonists, concentrates on the study of the composition of the body in relation to space. As Garbowski notes, following Miroslaw Przylipiak, the ideas and thoughts in the Decalogueconcern the fundamentally human existential questions, common to all people regardless of their place of residence or class position, the fact that the protagonists live in huge suburban apartment buildings is so significant, it would be impossible to imagine the action of the series in any other place (quoted by Garbowski). Garbowski meticulously analyses the physical spaces in which the protagonists lead their lives and follows this discussion with an interesting conclusion on symbolic spaces. The last three parts of the second chapter are devoted to the study of time in the Decalogue. Garbowski distinguishes four types of time: narrative time, symbolic time, historical time and existential time. All these categories, supported by the theoretical findings of Gerard Genette, Stuart Kaminsky and David Bordwell, are discussed from the perspective of character development. In chapters three and four Garbowski gets to the most exciting part of his analysis, namely the incarnating of the protagonist and the issue of selftranscendence. These two chapters are most engaging to me. The fact that the book originated as a doctoral dis - sertation under the supervision of the Reverend Prof. Tadeusz Zasepa at the Inter-Faculty Chair of Media and the Communication of Faith at KUL is very important here. Writing as a religious believer (and only firm believers may be admitted to this famous Catholic Polish university), Garbowski belongs among academics dealing with religious matters, who work in a place of serious research in religious studies and in the humanities. The lectures are conducted both by lay persons and by members of various religious orders at KUL. Undoubtedly, then, a book primarily written as a doctoral thesis supervised by a Catholic priest could be expected to provide valuable insight into the place of the transcendent in Kieslowski s films. To introduce the notion of incarnation, 86 Volume 6 No. 2
Garbowski refers to John Bethke Elshtain s understanding of the incarnational work of literature. As Garbowski quotes him, an incarnational text is a world of concrete presences; it derives from an impulse to make real that which is symbolized or represented. A symbol, a metaphor, a figure does not stand apart from but participates in the thing itself. The writer aims neither for a pure realm nor for an ideal form but for a way to express reverence for that which is. Garbowski painstakingly tries to illustrate this sense of the incarnational in all the episodes by placing emphasis on small gestures, insignificant events and ruptures in the narrative, as well as on the films visual elements and the way the dialogue and the actors form a unified whole. Although full of meticulous descriptions of particular scenes and longer segments of the films, the chapter, nevertheless, allows the mysterious IT that makes Kieslowski s film art so disturbing in its depiction of human fate to elude critical grasp. The last chapter in the book, The Protagonists and their Self-Transcen - dence, finally addresses the most controversial and, indeed most discussed, aspect of all Kieslowski s films: the interpretation of the mystical or the transcendent. Garbowski introduces the theme of transcendence as a vital aspect of an individual s spirituality in chapter one. Self-transcendence is connected with finding meaning in one s life. And it must be stressed that this meaning is not meaning in some abstract sense. Meaning depends very much on the individual s life and the situation in which he finds himself. The author concludes the first chapter with a declaration that the remainder of the book will show how complex it becomes when the concept of selftranscendence is translated into the lives of the protagonists of the Decalogue series. To my surprise, the last chapter opens with a section titled, The Protagonist and Values, in which an exact synopsis of every episode is given. While we could have expected such a synopsis either at the beginning of the book or as an appendix, the placement of this exacting account of the events in each episode seems justified in view of the chapter s content. In this chapter, Garbowski carefully analyses each episode in the context of the commandments they represent, and he presents all the narrative nuances in the context of religious literature and art. The second part of this chapter, The Protagonists and their Responsibility before God, provides several interesting moments for the discussion of Kieslowski s films. The first one deals with the issue of divine intervention. Garbowski suggests here that it is God that can be seen as the main protagonist in the series. In an interesting argument, Garbowski proposes several cinematic proofs for his thesis supported by verses from the Gospels. One of these cinematic proofs is the intro- CJFS / RCEC 87
duction of the character of a witness (played by Artur Barcis) who appears in every episode of the series. In a long discussion of this ambiguous character, Garbowski finds his role in the communicating of divine intervention to be a principal clue to the filmmaker s deep concern with the transcendent. The second point in this intriguing chapter is Garbowski s discussion of the issue of faith, to which Kieslowski devotes so much attention and which, according to the author of the book, arises from the dialogue the protagonists carry on with the Thou. The third interesting point is the author s analysis of the transcendent and the conscience that appear as a second voice in the dialogic protagonist. Bakhtin, the transcendent, the conscience and the divine come together when Garbowski concludes this section with a quotation from Viktor Frankl: The conscience manifests itself in man s ability of distancing himself from himself, while love shows his ability of self-transcendence. rough passages and mistakes in the Polish titles (an especially annoying one is a replacement of an l with a dash by a g?!), the book is fascinating. Garbowski s thorough research, his carefully constructed and complicated arguments, and his theoretical range (literary theory, film theory, religious studies, philosophy and history of art) make this book the first truly ambitious attempt to explain the inexpressible which is so mysterious and elusive in Krzysztof Kieslowski s films. Janina Falkowska University of Western Ontario BAZIN AT WORK: MAJOR ESSAYS AND REVIEWS FROM THE FORTIES AND FIFTIES André Bazin Translated by Alain Piette and Bert Cardullo. Routledge, 1997. 252 pp. The final part of the closing chapter, The Axiology of Existence, deals with love, existence, premonitions and freedom. This rather general analysis covers a variety of philosophical and religious issues that are hinted at or openly displayed in the episodes of the series. Still, as Garbowski writes in his conclusion, he is aware that the reading of the Decalogue he proposes is intriguing, but not necessarily exhaustive. Despite many unwieldy phrases and Eric Rohmer once lamented that the body of André Bazin s work lay buried in weekly papers and reviews, while other critics proudly unreadable theorizing lined bookstore windows. The publication of the first of four volumes of Bazin s writings in 1958 under the title Que-est-ce que le Cinéma? (sampled a decade later by Hugh Gray s collection What is Cinema?) helped to alleviate Rohmer s distress by bringing together some of Bazin s longer theoretical 88 Volume 6 No. 2