In “Blue,” the first film in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Three Colors” trilogy, our grief-stricken heroine sits in flickering sunlight on a Paris bench. Her eyes are closed. Julie is tuned in to the internal music of the unfinished symphony her husband was composing when he died in a car crash along with their young daughter. Julie survived.
As she listens, an old woman walks toward a recycling bin. Her spine is so curved she resembles a “C.” Elegant in pumps and a dark, belted coat, she strains to place her glass bottle in the opening. The director witnesses this, but not Julie (Juliette Binoche), who has found her own moment of peace.
It is a simple, deeply moving gesture in a body of work rife with everyday, yet transcendent, poetry. And in “White” and “Red” – co-written with longtime collaborator Krzysztof Piesiewicz – the recycling scene is repeated. It always occurs near the movie’s central character. Each time the emotional payoff is tenderly altered to stirring effect.
On Sunday, the Denver Film Society begins a spectacular three-week exploration of the Polish director’s exquisite humanism. “A Road Map to the Soul: The Complete Kieslowski” is one of those dynamic film series often associated with major arts organizations on the left or right coasts. It was put together by the Polish Cultural Institute in New York, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Polish Film Archive.
The arrival of the series to the Starz FilmCenter serves notice that the film society is making good on its ambitions to become a world-class cinematheque.
DFS artistic director Ron Henderson calls the series his “baby.” The relationship between the DFS and Kieslowski is long-standing.
In 1980, the festival showed “Camera Buff.” It was, Henderson recalls, his first encounter with the director.
“It was his first masterpiece. It was stylistically rich and projected a powerful and complex vision of the camera, the director and the universe,” Henderson wrote in an e-mail. He was putting the finishing touches on November’s Starz Denver Film Festival.
“It was a great introduction to a contemporary artist who would become our most compelling and visually articulate cinematic philosopher and, yes, theologian,” he said.
In 1997, with the blessing of Kieslowski’s widow, the festival renamed one of its juried prizes the Krzysztof Kieslowski Award for Best Feature Film.
“Road Map” begins with Kieslowski’s early works, including shorts he made as a student at the Lodz Film School as well as his early documentaries. Also in week one: “Camera Buff,” “Blind Chance” and “The Double Life of Veronique.”
Week two brings the not-to-be missed “A Short Film About Killing” and “A Short Film About Love” (Oct. 11-12).
The morally intimate, emotionally vast masterpiece “Decalogue” screens Oct. 13-16. Made for Polish television, Kieslowski’s 10-part rumination on the Ten Commandments premiered at the 1989 Denver International Film Festival.
The series ends with the marvel “Three Colors” (Oct. 18-22). In a smart tweak of the traveling program, DFS has added German director Tom Tykwer’s 2002 adaptation of Kieslowski and Pieciewicz’s “Heaven,” starring Cate Blanchett (Oct. 23-24).
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Kieslowski’s death at 54.
Death demands but also rejects metaphors. So seeking meaning in Kieslowski’s demise during heart surgery may be tempting but also ridiculoulsy insufficient to the loss. Still, one ventures to say a heart of remarkable compassion and complexity still beats in each of his films.
“A Road Map to the Soul: The Complete Kieslowski”
FILM SERIES|Starz FilmCenter at the Tivoli, Ninth Street and Auraria Parkway; Oct 1-24; for a complete schedule go to denverfilm.org|$5.50-$8.50|303-820-FILM.
