Cinema allows viewers to peek into the lives of others, making the medium inherently voyeuristic. It is thus exciting when filmmakers resort to telling stories about the phenomenon of voyeurism. To list some works that have successfully explored the same, the most salient name has to be Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller Rear Window wherein the English filmmaker examines the voyeuristic tendency of films by making his protagonist participate in an extended episode of spying on his neighbors out of boredom. Director Wong Kar-Wai lets the audience turn into voyeurs in the romantic drama In The Mood for Love (2000). An abstract, dream-like cinematography makes the viewers believe as if they are spying on the two characters who are questioning their spouse’s infidelity, all while falling for each other. And then there is The Truman Show by Peter Weir, which examines voyeurism in a surveillance state to explore questions on privacy. 

Distancing itself from conventional accounts, Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski explores voyeuristic tendencies to another tangent in A Short Film About Love. The 1988 film is an extended version of one of the episodes from his television miniseries Dekalog—it is the second one to be transformed into a feature film other than A Short Film about Killing. A Short Film About Love presents a case in point wherein the thin boundaries separating love, lust, and obsession blur, and a unique take on voyeurism predates the narrative of love with wry emotions. 

The film is centered on the lives of nineteen-year-old Tomek (Olaf Lubaszenko) and an older lady Magda (Grazyna Szapolowska), who stays in an adjacent building. Every day at eight, Tomek, who works in a post office, sits in front of his bedroom window that faces Magda’s apartment. Smitten by the attractive lass, Tomek regularly spies on Magda through a telescope and keeps a tab on her everyday activities. Things take an interesting turn when Tomek’s obsession grows into love. To get closer to Magda, Tomek resorts to myriad routine ways. We see him slip fake postal notices in her mailbox for a false money order so that Magda visits him.  He takes up a milk delivery job in Magda’s complex to be closer to her. A lovesick Tomek’s youthful infatuation keeps growing until Magda becomes cognizant of Tomek’s intentions, and the roles reverse. 

The Dekalog series was based on the Ten Commandments—a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship in Christianity. In the context of A Short Film About Love, we are made to reexamine moral and ethical principles of romantic entanglement—‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ The central irony of A Short Film About Love is the transformation in character that Magda goes through. Furious at first, Magda intends to seek revenge but soon finds herself drawn to Tomek. After an unsatisfying sexual attempt, Tomek flees to his apartment and slits his wrist, though he survives. This is when the tables turn. The loved one turns into the lover. Magda, seeking redemption, begins obsessing over him. We see her struggling to catch a glimpse of Tomek with her binoculars from her apartment.  It is also interesting to see how the film’s point of view changes once. It seems like Tomek’s innocence has transformed Magda. She turns away her lover, unwilling to engage in sex while Tomek is away.

A striking component of the film is the minimal use of sound, despite which the film is able to attain a rhythmic quality—which makes it engrossing. In a particular scene, Tomek, emotionally stinged upon viewing Magda with another man, makes a false call to the police in a pursuit to thwart an episode of intercourse between them. The entire sequence has no dialogue, but the tension built through the right camera movements and colors keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. It is also interesting to note Kieślowski’s control of the film is such that not a single frame or sequence seems unfazed. 

In conclusion, Kieślowski masterfully weaves a tale of human emotions riddled with irony and humor in A Short Film About Love. Kieślowski’s film also bears similarities to his Three Colours Trilogy. While the comical pangs seem to have a common thread with White (1994), voyeurism in itself is an important component in Red (1994). 

Review Courtesy of Anjani Chadha