Possibly the last of the really great European art film directors discusses his life and work. The tone of this book was a bit of a surprise. Unlike such visionary auteurs as Bergman and Tarkovsky, Kieslowski is funny, sarcastic, and deprecating, both about himself ("I was a complete idiot") and his country ("Poles will willingly drown another Pole in a glass of water"). And the art of cinema comes across here as a somewhat ridiculous chore, with fleeting and intermittent rewards. You may spend some time puzzling over whether Kieslowski is being accurate and sincere, or just having you on.

However, there's a wealth of insight and information in this book, about KK's films, the art of cinema in general, Poland and its history, and the ideas that animated KK throughout his career. If you have yet to discover such great films as "The Decalogue", "The Double Life of Veronique", and "Blind Chance", reading this book will whet your appetite. If you already know them, you'll gain further insights. And this book is just a great read, almost like a first-person confessional novel in its style. Stories like the one about how Kieslowski feigned insanity to avoid military service make it entertaining even if you don't care about movies!

This is a well-organized and informative book. While it is based on a series of interviews, the Q&A format is not used; instead, Stok lets Kieslowski narrate in his own words various stages in his life and films he has made. The effect is that of eavesdropping on a chance monologue, or that of a very colloquial autobiography. Although Stok (I think) happens to be the wife of one of Kieslowski's main cameramen, personal sentiments do not get in the way at any point. This book also contains, in addition to the compulsory stills from his documentaries and movies, various other interesting material such as photographs that Kieslowski himself took as a student at Lodz Film School.

The portrait of Kieslowski that emerges is of an overwhelmingly modest, considerate, private, and above all *humane* human being, self-deprecating to the extreme even after his international success as a director. He dismisses his vocation as the worst job in the world, hilarious (issuing directions via microphone and speaker, freezing, to a half-clad Grazyna Szapolowska atop a makeshift tower at 2am) and insignificant(his frustrating administrative experiences as a member of the Polish filmmaking guild). However, you realize that the poignant messages that come through in his films are the result of a unique personal/private sensitivity; he tries to articulate the manner in which outside events touch the individual, and hopes to touch the individual in the audience through his work. You can't reproach him for insisting that "you will never know what is deep inside me, no one will ever know, the experience is mine alone."

The only thing I felt was missing from the book was Kieslowski's final pronouncement on the Blue/White/Red series, since the final interviews were conducted while he was still editing. Also, it does not answer every single question you have about his films - what does the hunchbacked old woman who creeps through Veronique and the Trilogy signify? What does Veronique's clear rubber ball mean? At times, I realized that Kieslowski's narrative and symbolic intentions were really much simpler than what I had imagined to be. In all, this book is not the terminus in your quest to discover the essence of Kieslowski, but provides a heartwarming, personal portrait to base further navigations on.

The text and quotes are so well arranged that you accept the whole as a seamless narrative. Reading this book helped take his work from enigmatic to profoundly humanistic, even optimistic. Not a minute of his film is for editing, and not a word from these interviews should be overlooked. One of my favorite reads.

this was a very intriguing book based on, what i have been told, a series of short films directed by the author. i have not watched the films, but if they are as good as this book makes them out to be, i really would like to watch them. i would recommend this book to anyone interested in an interesting concept, such as basing films on the ten commandments, and probably anyone who enjoyed the films would enjoy this book as well.

This book is the foundation of the greatest work of philosophy produced this century. SERIOUSLY.

This 10 episode masterpiece is now available on DVD, at a reasonable price. Many of us would like to study this work. The publisher should be encouraged to reprint the Kieslowski/Piesiewicz book.

Actually, Mr. Knightley, the car in Blue - I'm assuming that you're referring to the one in the crash - was an Alfa Romeo. If it's some other car that you're referring to, then please ignore this. Otherwise, your observations are spot on: K is absolutely brilliant and remains vastly underappreciated by most of the movie-going public.

I must add that anyone who is interested in K should pick up "Kieslowski on Kieslowski" as it provides some really good insights into the workings of this unique director's vision.

I have been an enormous follower and keeper of Kieslowki's work since a fateful afternoon when I stumbled upon a showing of "Blue" several years ago. This of course came to a bittersweet juncture when K died in 1997. Regardless, this book accurately captures the the development of this extraordinary director... and writer. Insdorff presented some interesting insights in her writing amidst some oversights: the car in Blue was a Puegeott, not BMW, and no mentioning of "Blue's" Julie's accident interruption in court in "White". Although Kieslowki's beginnings and earlier works like his string of documentaries and "Decalogue" are crutcial to his foundation as an outstandingly brilliant director as showcased in the Three Colors trilogy, I wished more expoundment was made on the his final three works which is truly poetry in images.

I'm reviewing this book as a fan of Kieslowski. I'm saying this because the Zizek's approach is literary or, more specifically, Marxist-Lacanian. (Don't ask me what that means.)For starters, it's far more entertaining and insightful than Insdorf book on Kieslowski. For instance, Zizek talks about Kieslowski's movies while mentioning David Lynch's. Also, I was particularly intrigued by Zizek's analysis of "The Dekalog." How each episode leads to the next by not engaging on the specific commandment it should be representing. What you get with this book is a grab bag of meditations on post-modern cynicism, Plato via Marx Brothers, and Hitchcock-Lacan connection. Oy vey! For those interested in the cinema of Kieslowski, this might be a book for you if you're either immersed or have a passing knowledge with (drum rolls, please) Post/Theory. Otherwise, this book is a drag!