No End [Poland 1984]

Bez Końca
Director: K. Kieślowski
Cinematographer: J. Petrycki

Kieślowski's darkest film from the socialist period, No End foreshadows 'Three Colours: Blue' in many respects, but this is a more political film. The protagonist is mainly attempting to cope with the death of her husband, trying to touch him and communicate with him again, while the film follows the story of a jailed striker during martial law. But these are not two separate stories told simultaneously; they are joined by the sense of emotional and moral ambiguity, the deep pain of everyone doing what they hope is best but nothing being unequivocally clear.

It is in fact that clarity that one of the characters remarks has been lost since earlier times. The story takes place in 1982, and the Poland we are shown is in crisis and has been torn to pieces. People's houses are full of Western goods; they even attach fake foreign brand name stickers to Polish goods to try to make them look foreign. Meanwhile we are told they are queuing for a bar of soap. People are moving abroad because there is nothing left for them; the innocent time of their youth is dead. Dissidents are struggling under martial law and trying not to compromise, although the system would allow it. The protagonist works on translating the works of Orwell into Polish for clandestine circulation. In all of this there are no optimistic characters; rather a sense of anxiety and pain pervades the film.

The portrayal of the justice system is particularly interesting because the script writer was a lawyer found by Kieślowski in the process of making the film. We encounter the young frustrated trainee lawyer who wants to stand up for the striker and encourage him to claim he was trying to subvert the system, although he was only striking for material reasons. We also encounter the older generation, personified by a lawyer who took his last political case in 1952, the result being execution by firing squad. This older lawyer is in the business of negotation and compromise; he is friendly with judges and works out deals over coffee in the cafeteria. It is obvious he has been doing this for many decades. But he finds himself asking, 'who am I defending against whom?'

In other words, no one in the film seems to have a clear sense of what they believe in or what they should believe in. Even the protagonist seems to not have decided whether or not she can be without her husband, whether or not she wants to live, until the very end. There are no simple answers in this film. And although it can be compared in some respects with 'Three Colours: Blue', this is a far more complex and interesting film, the latter movie being in my opinion Kieślowski's weakest.

A propagandist might look for triumphalism in a film like this, or for unilateral condemnation of one or the other side. But thankfully that is not to be found in a Kieślowski film. Instead what we get is a reflection which outlasts the uncertainty of the 1980s. Events have shown us that things were not as black and white as they may have seemed, and Kieślowski was never interested in portraying things in those unrealistic terms. Human existence is pervaded by tension, at times by suffering. The old lawyer says at one point that we must make a choice whether or not to live; and if you choose to live, then you must be able to endure. In some respects this movie is about that choice, and its implications. It is therefore not the most comfortable film to watch, but it is nevertheless important.