Krzysztof Kieslowski-Przypadek ('Blind Chance') (1981)

Poland, in the politically turbulent late 1970's: Witek is running to catch a train. From this banal event, Krzysztof Kieslowski imagines three different possible outcomes in the young man's life. In the first scenario, Witek catches the train on which he meets some hard line communists and joins the party. In the second, as Witek runs for the train, his path is blocked by a ticket inspector; the ensuing struggle leads to his arrest and subsequent involvement in the political underground. In the final scenario, Witek misses the train and he returns to the medical studies that he intended to abandon. He falls in love with a female student, gets married and lives a quiet life as a doctor, showing little interest in politics. Artificial Eye




The story is deep and meaningful, yet also has a timeless quality that makes the story very memorable. A young Boguslaw Linda plays the main role in the film with an outstanding and sincere performance. The film shows three alternative situations and how small details can make a man's life take various paths. (amazon.com)




In one scenario the man becomes a Communist party member, another an anticommunist, and yet in a third a good husband and doctor. The people from one reality are in the background of another, but because of the main course of action taken is different, they do not play a central role in the other time line. It is absolutely fascinating to see how his lives play out and how he ends up at the same fate, regardless of which life he leads. (amazon.com)




Kieslowski's movies are enigmatic and "Blind Chance" is the "bible" of the Polish cinema of moral anxiety(a term Kieslowski disliked). Unfortunately many scenes in his early movies can be elusive if one doesn't know much about the socio-political events of the communist/socialist era in Poland. The screenplay is constructed as a web of connections---blind chances. Here are some of them. Witek was born in June 1956 during the first post WWII general strike against stalinist regime in Poznan, Poland. As far as I remember, he was saying he remembered being born. The scene in the hospital is a connection between life and death--- Witek being born amidst the victims massacred by the commie military and militia forces. His life path is set in similar political circumstances before August 1980(Solidarity strike). (http://imdb.com/title/tt0084549/board/nest/47675489)




Witek's father's dying in the hospital of cancer and his last puzzling words to his son are " you don't have to "(be a decent man). Witek studies medicine practising in the hospital prosectorium. The first "blind chance" is tied to meeting Werner, a guy who lived through 1956 and compromised his beliefs to get out of prison. Thanks to his introduction to a powerful friend in the party Witek gets infected with political idealism and joins the party to achieve his goals. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0084549/board/nest/47675489)




One of the alternative road lives of the main character, when it seems he made the right moral choice, by remaining politically neutral ends in death on the plane. This scene eclipses the movie. No matter what kind of choices Witek makes he never reaches France. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0084549/board/nest/47675489)