Blind Chance - 6

Written and directed by Polish film icon Krzysztof Kieslowski (Blue, White, Red, Heaven, The Decalogue: I-III, IV-VII, VIII-X), this film is a earlier and more intelligent version of Sliding Doors. Comparing it to Sliding Doors is an insult to Kieslowski intelligence, but in a similar way this film takes place three times, each starting with Witek, a medical student in a crisis of vocation, running after a train. Each of the episodes has a different outcome, once working with the communist government, once resisting the government and working with others underground, and finally taking a neutral and indifferent stance toward the government as it is convenient for his career. Kieslowski's goal here is to show the influence of events on one's life. Rather than make a case for choice, Kieslowski shows how "the world" (government/society/culture) has already won determining the course of things. And yet, there are choices along the way. Kieslowski leaves it open as to how this dialectic works. In the end offering up a rather tragic vision of life.