Revisiting a master after decades opens up newer perspectives and reveals layers that may have escaped notice at first viewing. The cinematic clarity gained through age helps achieve an understanding that makes the viewing experience much more fulfilling. Krzysztof Kieslowski’s NO END (1985) actually deals with two stories that any book on screenplay writing would warn against vehemently, but Kieslowski ties up the two different strands in a manner that coalesce seamlessly to project a disturbing period in Polish history – the imposition of martial law when the SOLIDARITY – the worker’s union has just been banned in the early 80s. The story of a grieving woman trying to come to terms with the sudden death of her lawyer-husband to a heart attack is counterpointed by an elderly lawyer’s attempt to free a political activist who was being represented by the dead lawyer: the personal tragedy is accentuated by the larger political story through skillful narrative weaving. This is cinema at its most brilliant.
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Ranjan Das is a Mumbai based filmmaker and faculty.