A Short Film About Love

Masterly 1988 film, part of the Dekalog, which focuses on the human need to be loved

Director
Krzysztof Kieslowski

Performers
Magda : Grazyna Szapolowska
Tomek : Olaf Lubaszenko

A fine example of the work of the Polish master director Krzysztof Kieslowski, known for his Three Colours series. This is the successor to his A Short Film About Killing and is another episode in the cycle of films based on the Ten Commandments, Dekalog, Kieslowski's epic project which took him several years to complete.

A Short Film About Love focuses on two human beings deprived of the gift of love. A young postal worker falls in love with an older woman who lives in a flat opposite his, after spying on her through his telescope. She attempts to prove to him that "love" is nothing more than a set of biological impulses, as a reaction to his voyeurism. But the tables are turned, and she ends up spying on him, and turning the obsession around...

Kieslowski's masterly techniques of meticulous framing, painfully accurate observations and dispassionate objectivity with losing his characters' humanity are distinctly present in this moving film about the hunger for one of the most basic human needs.