BLIND CHANCE

The medical student Witek Długosz runs after a train. What course will his life take if he manages to jump on? Or if he misses it? From this point of departure the film moves on to unfold three different lives, one leading to membership in the Communist Party, another into the underground opposition under the cover of the church, while in the third version Witek withdraws into private life. Whatever destiny decides, Witek’s ethical standpoint remains the same – but any choice is pointless in view of the absurd reality of Poland in the 1970s. Witek finds himself invariably in opposition to reality. Kieœlowski’s filmic discourse on freedom and determinism was banned immediately after the imposition of martial law in Poland in 1981. First screened to a general audience in 1987, it had long enjoyed cult status among dissidents.