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Camerimage, the cinematography-oriented film festival, will bestow its Lifetime Achievement Award on auteur director Krzysztof Zanussi.

Born in Warsaw in 1939, Zanussi studied at the National Film School in Lodz, Poland, but even before enrolling he was making amateur films, winning awards at various festivals.

His directorial debut, “The Death of a Provincial” (1966), with cinematography by Jan Hesse, foreshadowed the central themes of his work – the juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane, youth and old age, life and death.

After making several medium-length and documentary films, Zanussi directed his first feature, “The Structure of Crystal” (1969), with Stefan Matyjaszkiewicz as Dp. The picture is considered part of the so-called third wave in Polish cinema, which combines asceticism, lack of a traditional plot and a profound sense of realism, reflected in the cinematography – all defining characteristics of the director’s early work.

In the 1970s, Zanussi created a series of films that...

Krzysztof Kieślowski's magnum opus for Polish Television is a transcendent 'cycle' of moral tales, each based on one of the Ten Commandments. But sometimes it's difficult to get the connection -- these brilliant mini-movies are pretty tricky. Dekalog Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 837 1988 / Color / 1:33 flat full frame; 1:70 widescreen / 583 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 27, 2016 / 99.95 Starring Aleksander Bardini, Janusz Gajos, Krystyna Janda, Bugoslaw Linda, Daniel Olbrychski many others. Cinematography Witold Adamek, Jacek Blawut, Slavomir Idziak, Andrzej Jaroszewicz, Edward Klosinski, Dariusz Kuc, Krzysztof Pakulski, Piotr Sobocinski, Wieslaw Zdort Film Editor Ewa Smal Original Music Zbigniew Preisner Written by Krzysztof Kieślowski, Krzysztof Plesiewicz Produced by Ryszard Chutkowski Directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Back in the early 1990s I believe my first access to Polish director Krzystof Kieślowski was a laserdisc of his film The Double Life of Veronique. I also remember a big reaction in 1996 when...

Chicago – Movies don’t get much more personally influential than Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Blue,” “White,” and “Red,” collectively known as the “Three Colors” trilogy, and recently released in one gorgeous box set from The Criterion Collection. As we all do, I was a bit concerned that perhaps my memory of these films had been enhanced with time, but I found the opposite — they’re even better with age and stand as one of the best film achievements of not just their era but of all time. I can’t say enough about Kieslowski’s talent as a director and, while some may point to the “Decalogue” films or “The Double Life of Veronique,” I’ve always considered “Three Colors” to be the greatest accomplishment of one of history’s greatest directors. And Criterion has done one of their most notable acquisitions justice with one of their best releases of the year.

Release Date: Nov. 15, 2011

Price: DVD $59.95, Blu-ray $79.95

Studio: Criterion

Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Blue, White and Red receive the Criterion treatment this November.

Legendary Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colors trilogy, a boldly cinematic trio of stories about love and loss, was a defining event of the art house boom of the 1990s. The films — Blue (1993), White (1993) and Red (1994) — were named for the colors of the French flag and stand for the tenets of the French Revolution: liberty, equality and fraternity. But that only hints at the film’s beauty, richness and humanity.

Set in Paris, Warsaw and Geneva, Blue, White, and Red (Kieślowski’s final film) range from tragedy to drama to comedy. They follow a group of ambiguously interconnected people experiencing profound personal disruptions.

Marked by intoxicatingly lush cinematography and memorable performances by such actors as Juliette Binoche (Chocolat), Julie Delpy (Guilty Hearts), Irène Jacob (Beyond the Clouds) and...

Krystyna Janda, Pawel Szajda in Swet Rush The European Film Academy, Efa Productions, and the International Federation of Film Critics Fipresci have announced that the 2009 Prix Fipresci goes to 83-year-old Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda (right) for Tatarak / Sweet Rush. Based on Sándor Márai’s short story, Sweet Rush — which has some points in common with The Door in the Floor — chronicles the love affair between a neglected doctor’s wife (veteran Krystyna Janda) whose two sons died in World War II and a man half her age (Us-born actor Pawel Szajda). Shooting was interrupted following the death of Janda’s husband, Wajda’s frequent cinematographer Edward Klosinski. When production resumed, Wajda rearranged the narrative to focus on the filmmaking process [...]...

Sundance Film Festival

PARK CITY -- German writer-director Jan Schutte's "Love Comes Lately" is based on three short stories by Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, but you would swear they derive from a much duller author. The slow-paced and often melancholy film contains none of the verve and vitality of Singer's stories. Schutte has taken on a salutary goal -- to make a film about aging characters that neither mocks nor pities them. Yet one longs for the wit and wisdom of Singer's own distinctive voice.

As it is, "Love Comes Lately" will probably get relegated to Jewish film festivals and ancillary markets.

Otto Tausig plays Max Kohn, an elderly Austrian-Jewish writer, perhaps a notch or two below the prestige of Singer but not lacking in awards or literary credentials, living a comfortable though somewhat anxious final years in his adopted Manhattan. He pecks away daily at his manual typewriter, suffers from nightmares involving sexual inadequacy yet has a longtime girlfriend (Rhea Pearlman), who pesters him with her paranoid jealousies over imagined infidelities. Or are they imagined?

A slim story covering his swing through New England by train to deliver a couple of university lectures -- where he surprises himself at one stop by bedding a long-ago student turned professor (Barbara Hershey) -- gets interrupted by two other stories he is supposedly writing and editing. These stories feature alter egos also played by Tausig.

Each is a tale of thwarted romances. Unaccountably, younger women keep flinging themselves at this octogenarian. Must be literary groupies.

The first one is a little bizarre involving a horny, crippled motel maid (Elizabeth Pena), a crazed hotel manager, a murder and another pushy widow (Caroline Aaron), who is left dangling. The second is a more complete story albeit a tragic one involving a lonely recently widowed woman (Tovah Feldshuh), who briefly comes on to the astonished neighbor.

The three-part film feels insubstantial and sketchy at every turn. About all that Schutte achieves is a decent understanding of the inner life of his central character, of Max's fantasies, fears, longings and despair. Everyone else seems like projections of that inner life but not part of any real life at all.

LOVE COMES LATELY

A Zero West production in co-production with Zero Fiction Film, Dor Film

Credits:

Writer/director: Jan Schutte

Based on stories by: Isaac Bashevis Singer

Producers: Martin Hagemann, Kai Kunnemann

Executive producers: W. Wilder Knight III, Alex Gibney

Director of photography: Edward Klosinski, Chris Squires

Production/costume designer: Amanda Ford

Music: Henning Lohner

Editors: Katja Dringenberg, Renate Merck

Cast:

Max Kohn: Otto Tausig

Riesle: Rhea Pearlman

Ethel: Tovah Feldshuh

Rosalie: Barbara Hershey

Esperanza: Elizabeth Pena

Running time -- 86 minutes

No MPAA rating...