Like many people I first came across Krzysztof Kieślowski through his later work such as The Three Colours Trilogy, made after his move to France from his native Poland. Only later did I stumble across his earlier, rougher films such as the Decalogue series, made in the drabber environment of Soviet-era Polish communism. This film, Camera Buff, comes from amongst these earlier pieces, made in 1979.
The first striking think about the film is that it is a period-piece for its time. The Soviet-era architecture, cars, clothes, and factories are obvious. What then hits the viewer is the social-economic setting of the film. The obvious heavy-industrial context, with wheezing factories belting fumes from their modernist chimneys, is the backdrop for a series of relationships which too are located in time and space. The deadening bureaucracy which controls the factory is typical of the era, as are the depictions of an adequate but basic life in the stagnant command-economy. Over all these relationships lurks the chubby party-boss, whose role is to oversee all the people and operations in the plant and the town for the party-state, and to protect the sacred Marxist-Leninist ideology. All this dates the film in the Cold-War era of the East generally, but what is even more interesting is that in 1979, it was obviously acceptable to portray the party boss interfering and censoring the film in a way which would not have made it to the screen in 1970, let alone before 1951.
The film itself concerns Filip Mosz, a factory worker deftly played by Jerzy Stuhr, who gets a film camera with which to record the life of his first child, who is born near the start of the film. The camera is obviously a scarce resource, and the party demand that he use it to film the jubilee of the factory in which he works. This is successful, and leads to the establishment of a small film unit at the plant, making party-approved pieces - but Mosz's slightly artistic takes on everyday life gain wider plaudits, much to the anxiety of the party.
The tension between art and political control forms only a sub-plot however. The main theme is the obsession of the artist, and the way in which it takes over his life, causing great strain within his marriage. The lens through which Mosz increasingly lives his life becomes that of an observer, and recorder of life; not a full participant in it. This process is seen as even when not filming, he views scenes in his life and marriage - as if through a lens; forming a square with his hands to imagine how the scene would appear on film; to the increasing distress to his wife (Malgorzata Zabkowska as Irka Mosz). His cinemtographical exploits also unintentionally damage colleagues on the way too, a price he seems willing to accept for his art.
In one sense the film points to the way in which art and creativity provides a meaning for a man in an empty, drab, and highly controlled world. If the bleak nature of the vast monoform flats in which he lives, and the dispiriting nature of his work as a buyer for a factory in a command-economy which was unresponsive to his needs; was the problem, then Mosz found his outlet in capturing things as beautiful, natural and innocent as pigeons on the wing, or road-menders toil. However, Camera Buff now looks strangely prophetic in the sense that in the mobile phone/social media era there seems to be a strong pull (dare I say it, especially amongst the young!) (I know, I'm an old fart), to film and observe life and the world - rather than fully participate in it. I love my camera, and for a long time took it everywhere, but I was away that sometimes capturing an image was at odds with enjoying experiencing the reality of it. Banksy, in his own inimitable style views it like this:
In 1979, Krzysztof Kieślowski imagined it like this:
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