Full Transcript for Multiple Choice, Pt. 1 — Blind Chance

Workers seventy one and his documentary companion piece curriculum vita about the workings of local government. Blind Chance is a story about the government versus the people and the hostility and must trust on both sides. Like his earliest fictional work, it's partially a social real life piece, a grave and often quiet drama about the ins and outs of party politics, protest politics, religion and belief, and everyday life. Like his later projects, it's a set of interrelated stories. As a young man, Viteg Gulash passes through three different versions of his life, each of which comes out radically differently based on the influences that form him. In all three versions, Viteg has the same childhood and the same intention of becoming a doctor, but the death of his demanding father unmoors him and he drops out of medical school. Running for a trained warsaw, he either catches it or misses it, and in the process he encounters different people in circumstances who shape what comes. In one version of his life, he joins the Communist party and becomes a promising young local politician. In another, he instead meets up with a resistance and an inspiring older woman, and he becomes religious and involved with the solidarity movement. In the third, he avoids politics and lives a more sheltered and self contained family life outside of any of these larger movements. In each of these lives, though, the question of chance comes up, as when the American remakes Sliding Doors or the film's German offspring Run Lola Run. Some of what shapes VTech is coincidence, dependent on what other people do and how small things differ from one world to the next. His choices matter, Kilzowski suggests, but not perhaps as much as he might like them to matter. Their similarities in all three of these paths, but surprisingly v Teg's own personality might not be the primary thread uniting them. It's not that he's biddable and willing to go along with whatever's in front of them exactly, but this branch in his life comes at a time when he's obviously vulnerable in at Sea, looking for a new father figure to replace his own lost father, and willing to take in whatever the universe offers him, or perhaps whatever the multiverse offers him. Blind Chance is as much a religious and philosophical exploration as a narrative one. It invites viewers to consider how different would our lives have been if one thing had come out differently, maybe not even something that seemed like a radical branch point when it happened. 00:07:52 Speaker 4: The parting of. 00:07:53 Speaker 5: Ways in this story isn't about whether v Teg chooses to rush home to his father in the hospital and see him before he dies, or whether he chooses to leave medical school afterward. It's about whether he catches a given train and the interactions he has immediately before and after that moment. It's as though every moment we live through offers us choices, Kilzlowsky suggests, but every moment also makes choices for us. Sussing out which of those is which which is important is a major question, So is deciding who we are through any of the possible chances and choices and changes we face. Blind chance may not have the answers, but it invites us to choose to seriously ask the questions and accept everything that might follow from that choice. 00:08:37 Speaker 2: Chievejin Peters are taking nam le me too, Yeah, Tom, can you manits in sead? 00:09:02 Speaker 5: And they know. 00:09:05 Speaker 2: One sneak onst me in that. 00:09:08 Speaker 4: Does not to. 00:09:12 Speaker 8: Mee. 00:09:15 Speaker 5: Okay, guys, we have to start with the opening shot. I had not seen this film before. 00:09:20 Speaker 8: Now at McDonald's mcdouble is two fifty, so you can get your gym gains on or just get lunch for only two fifty, getting all value on the under three dollar and let me time only. 00:09:31 Speaker 6: Prices and participation may very Prices may. 00:09:33 Speaker 5: Be higher for delivery. Bottom Scott recommended it as a possible pairing for Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, and the opening shot, which zooms into vtg's mouth as he's screaming before you have any idea who this person is, made me think, oh wow, is this going to be as as radically ambitious as Everywhere, Everything All at Once? It takes until the end of the movie before you understand what that first shot is. But why do you think Koslowsky chooses to start there in that moment? 00:10:01 Speaker 6: I don't know I have an answer to that. But my reaction was was I thought maybe I was watching the wrong film, because this is my first time with this one as well, and I love Kaselowski's later work. But it also, you know, I had a certain expectations of what a Kasloski film was going to do, and I think it kind of settles into, you know, a more more recognizable style. But but yeah, you know, I was. I was very thrown by that. Well, I mean, in terms of why he chooses it, I guess. I guess, you know, it is a mystery that's not solved until the final shot, right. 00:10:28 Speaker 4: Yeah, we're kind of given some pieces, some little fractures of his life. Images that the images of the beginning, not just that shot, but other images of a hospital floor streak with blood, et cetera, that do kind of are just more suggestive, kind of throw you off balance a little bit before kind of situating you in a particular time and place, you know, And these are I guess major you know, we come to learn anyway that major moments in his life. Yeah, I guess we'll go ahead and say a spoiler alert. I mean, in terms of what happens to him the end of the movie. He has reason to be upset at that moment, and then you know, and then the hospital about I guess that's the one of his moment of his birth, I believe. And there's a certain amount of distress and violence that's associated with that too. I mean, it's an interesting thing. 00:11:15 Speaker 5: I understand correctly. It's a protest that happened right before his birth, that was

right down in a bloody and violent way. 00:11:22 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:11:22 Speaker 6: And then it was a worker's revolt. 00:11:23 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:11:24 Speaker 4: Sure, Okay, that makes sense because because the literal hospital floor is littally streaked like someone that someone has been dragged across it. 00:11:30 Speaker 5: Yeah, you actually see somebody drive across it. 00:11:33 Speaker 8: Yeah. 00:11:33 Speaker 5: And then as a result of what happened there, through details that were not entirely given, his mother dies in childbirth, and so does his twin brother, which suggests a whole nother series of you know, branching possibilities for this reality that we don't really touch on. 00:11:49 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I was. I was pleased that that that it branches out from the specific place that it does, right, because you think about what are the inflection points it's in a person's life, what are the moments, what the what's the age I guess in which someone is I guess malleable enough as a person to be able to change, to be able to go on one radically different direction or another, And what would be the context for that, which which I think Kislowski takes his time establishing well, which it has to do with a relationship that we tech has with his dad, with his time in medical school, which is something he doesn't necessarily want to do. It's something his father wants for him. And now with his father gone, he has something approach, something like freedom for his life to go in whatever direction is going to go in. And when you're when you're in your twenties and you're not settled down with anybody who've got you have no anchor, You don't have a parent as an anchor. He doesn't you know, have a girlfriend at least in you know, the first well, in any case, he's got nothing grounding him at that moment at the train station. So that is the point where where all bets are off, where all destinies are open. And I think it's kind of a you know, a kind of great place for the movie to start or continue, I guess, because he does establish a little bit of the beginning. 00:13:04 Speaker 5: Mostly what I end up wondering in opening with that scream is whether whether we're meant to think he has any kind of awareness of his other lives, the other possibilities, Like he seems to have an awareness of what is about to happen in the final shot of the film, we have no idea what goes wrong with the plane that he's on, which explodes dramatically in that particular timeline, which seems like a very odd way to end that story, just the fact that we don't exactly know what happened there, but it does seem like he he has some awareness that it's coming. He sees something or experiences something that lets him realize he and everybody on board are about to die. And I just I wonder if, being Kaslowski in particular, is this does he experience some kind of apotheosis or does he just see somebody stand up with a bomb? 00:13:55 Speaker 8: What happens? 00:13:56

Speaker 6: Yeah, it's hard to tell, Like I found in terms of sort of the film out, particularly in finding a Polish historical context. There's a bonus feature in the Criterion channel where the Polish from Critica, Sabuleuski, talks about it and he speaks quite definitively, you know, I don't try, I agree, but quite definitively as that being the true timeline and the other two being illusions. So no matter what this is, you know, he is he dies in the plane, and the other possibilities were perhaps just imagined or possibly possibly maybe even imagined in that moment of death kind of lastentation of Christ style, which I find kind of interesting reading of the film. I don't know if that's necessarily the case. 00:14:37 Speaker 1: So what do you guys think. 00:14:39 Speaker 5: I would love to hear his rationale or evidence for that, because to me, the interesting story here is Vtex's possibilities and how they arise the interesting part. I don't see this as a film to be decoded exactly in terms of this is real and this is false anymore than one of the women in Double Life, for Vernique is meant to be dismissed as like the fake, fake version of the life versus the real version of the life. You know, it's it's the parallelism that's interesting. It's the two stories that's interesting in those that movie, not here's the fake one and here's the real one. 00:15:16 Speaker 4: Yeah. And I don't really love the idea of him having any real say even in imagining these other two destinies for himself. I feel like that's something the universe is is doing, or does to Everyone sets them on, you know, a certain path, and and you know, you get put around certain situations around different people, and that can kind of, you know, take you into completely opposing you know, paths. I mean, he's he's a communist in one and an anti communist and you know, and a radical anti communist radical in the other, and you know, and he's still you know, the same guy. So how does that how does that happen? And I think that that's a strong observation about human nature, about our almost situational morality. I guess our situational you know, I guess cultural and political leanings. I mean, you're exposed to a certain set of ideas or a certain influential person or you know, a YouTuber or whatever, and you're and you're taking and you're taken. 00:16:23 Speaker 5: Down influence, influencer, somebody like that. 00:16:27 Speaker 4: You know, But I mean it could be that way, and it's it can be you know, we certainly know what now is something that can be pretty scary the way the way that you know that that can kind of shape a young, a young mind to kind of to kind of be led down this path, this algorithmic path that kind of leads you, leads you leads, you know, a perfectly normal, average person into you know, perhaps a more radical destiny than than than you know you might expect. And I mean, this is I don't want to you know, you know, he's ask you wasn't making Blind Chance about the year twenty twenty two, but your your mind does go there in terms of just the way you certain historical contexts can shape a person's thinking and what they end up doing with their lives. 00:17:14 Speaker 6: Yeah, I think part of what makes this movie a little distressing is this is something we can imagine happening to other people but not to us. And to be put in the in the in the skin of this protagonist, you know, very you know, staying very close to him, who, for all you know, we see as a bright, thoughtful person and not just sort of a two dimensional character. 00:17:35 Speaker 4: Yeah, it is. 00:17:36 Speaker 6: It is an uncomfortable thing to sit with that, you know, the idea that blind Chance has a huge influence on on who we become. 00:17:46 Speaker 5: Well, I didn't have much opportunity to look into like contemporaneous response to this film, but I cannot but wonder what whether there was as much resistance to that idea, like with the first people that saw this movie in the nineteen eighties, as there would be today if you made a version of this where the same person becomes like a hardcore died in the wall like Maga hat wearing Republican or a hardcore like AOC loving democrat, just sort of based on whether I catch a given bus. Like I feel like we've become to a place of like political partisanship where people would rebel against that idea. But this was also a very partisan and friction heavy time in a country's political history, and I wonder if people at that time had the same sort of like, know, these are the right ideals, Like how are you implying that he could have had the opposite ideals based on catching a train? 00:18:44 Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, obviously it met with a huge amount of resistance, given that it took six years for it to see the light of day, and even even when it did, it did so in a censored I think, you know, you could read every part of the film, or at least you know every part that's engaged in This is kind of a as an anti communist film, it is, I would say, I would say, I don't see I don't really see any other reading, And I guess that would be you know, where Kislowski got himself into trouble with the censors. 00:19:19 Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I don't. I don't go to me for all kinds of you know, deep detail about it, but it was you know, you know, if you look at the if you watch the bonus features on the Criterion channel, you know it mixed clear that it was made in a very small window when Solidarity kind of opened up some possibilities and Polish culture that were then pretty much shut down within within a year at the same. 00:19:42 Speaker 5: Time, I mean, both of his political careers on both ends, and with him disillusioned and abandoned and betrayed by the people who he threw in with and believed in in some ways, and he seems possibly happier and more himself in the timeline where he just sets aside on all politics, Like is there this may be anti communists, but I think that

there are anti solidarity messages in here as well. I think in some ways there are almost just like anti anti politics, anti joining messages here. 00:20:19 Speaker 4: I felt like the reverse though. I just felt like the end of the the last third is would not be Kislowski's preferred destiny for a person like an apolitical you know, you know, somebody who's who's not engaged in these things. I don't know. I mean, I've always felt like a film kind of leaned against that more than you know, than for it. Yeah, I don't know. 00:20:45 Speaker 6: I mean, I'm not sure, you know, I'm not sure there's a single political message here. I think there is, you know, I don't want to see that just sort of both sides did zones. But but there is no I don't think there's an ideal outcome anyway, and one, you know, you end up disillusion and betrayed, or you end up being kind of a you know, wishy, washy, noncommittal person who you know makes no change. 00:21:09 Speaker 4: In the world. 00:21:09 Speaker 6: It's it's a tough it's and it's exploded and yeah, yeah, while flying to Libya, which there's a history, there's probably some history there, I don't I don't understand, so I won't you know, I can't. I can't speak to that. But it doesn't seem like an accidental choice of destination either. 00:21:27 Speaker 5: Well, there's something I very much wanted to get into with this movie. I watched this movie over the course of many hours because I kept stopping to look things up. I know, Scott, in particular, this is not your actually, both of you, this is not your preferred way to watch a movie. But I kept having questions, like like big political questions about what this or that was meant to me or signify, And there was just so much of the movie that I felt like I would not be able to parse if I didn't know more about not only the Solidary Any movement and the particular form of Polish communism at this point in time, but ultimately like exactly what the year seventy seven signified in terms of like that branching opportunity that Keith laying out, Like how much of the story do you feels like a universal story about humanity and choice? And how much of it is like a story about a particular country and a particular moment and the choices that were being made like then and there. 00:22:28 Speaker 6: So before we get into that, can I talk about Can I talk about how I saw this film? Just it's just a brief aside, a little sideline timeline here. So you're right, Tasha, I prefer to sit down, turn out the lights, put my phone away, watch a movie in one sitting, but that's not always possible. I did not plan well in terms of seeing this movie in times of watching it. So I watched the first hour of it, you know, at home, and then I had to catch a flight and I thought, you know, what, I'll just finish this on a plane. So I ended up finishing watching most of it at the airport, kind of hunched over because there's actually a lot of sucks in the last stretch of this movie. And then as I like, I like, okay, I can just finish up here on the runway. I'll watch the end of this movie. Wow. As we were taxing, I watched the end of this movie. And that is how I saw the film blind Chats. I got kind of kind of mad at Scott. Frankly, not that you can predict this, but but he was the one who put me in this position me, did. 00:23:28 Speaker 5: You and then and then did you suddenly scream hysterically on like on the plane going on the runway, Yes, as as as the. 00:23:36 Speaker 4: Camera my tonsils and then you had also downloaded the film Fearless to watch on the plane as well. Yes. 00:23:45 Speaker 6: But anyway, all that Scott, we answered that question first. It's a it's a really good question. 00:23:49 Speaker 4: Yeah. So to get around to this question, I did watch it again all in one sitting, and I would say that it really does resonate to me as universal story that's informed by specific detail and so and so. While I certainly cannot claim to you know, have a grasp on you know, the very the very particular references and you know historical and political context that Kislowski is working with here. You know, I can recognize this is is, I can recognize it as universal in terms of the way destinies are shaped, the way chance works. And and the thing I really appreciated about the whole chance part of it is that when we think about chance, you know, it often has to do with well, you know, we catch this train and and uh, and this thing happens. This, Yeah, our life goes in this direction or that direction. But what we but what this film has to do is is talking about is think about like what where a person goes, Where where a person's mind mind goes, How how how chance actually affects you know, how the same person can be just in a difference situation and make it and make a totally different set of choices. And and it makes you wonder, wonder of course, about how much control you have over your your life, about about how much how many of your the choices that you do make are you, how much your morality is is can be situational, how much your politics are are influenced by by those in your in your sphere and and the inputs that you that you take in. You know, It's just it's fascinating to me because I feel like it's a it's not just kind of a a clever little film about where your life could go. It's it's it's really about how all of us are are are shaped and the and uh and how how very different we could we could be depending on you know, where the train does or does not take us. 00:25:48 Speaker 2: I mean, I. 00:25:49 Speaker 5: Agree about that in the sense that, like, I think that this is a structure that could support just about any time and place that could be told about like any people in any circumstance. But at the same time I also see it as potentially especially just knowing Kislowski's interests in the way he told stories, it does also just feel like a big metaphor for like the country as is at the precipice of a

choice, and there are different directions that could go in and like, to me, this is as his films often tended to be, like both a big story about humanity and maybe a smaller story about his native country and the decisions that were being made there. 00:26:34 Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that's fair. I think, you know, the universality of it can be seen in how much it's been ripped off, right, I mean, it is just used. You know, this, this framework has been used for you know, sliding doors and run and Run and then you know, countless episodes of television shows. But I also feel like it was it's kind of prescient in that you know, we'll get into everything everywhere, all at once. But this is a very you know, basic idea of a basic version of idea that wud get picked up by by physics and theoreticians and things like that, Whereas I think here he's just telling a story. But but I do think, you know, there is a specificity to it in this in the sense that it is, you know, those events we see early on, uh in our protagonist's life are all important. You know, his friend who leaves, who doesn't understand why he leaves, uh is you know we find out later, you know, the the autopsy he witnesses, which was that a real autopsy? Sure it looked it looked real to me. 00:27:28 Speaker 5: I don't think you could possibly have faked that in on that budget in that day and age. It would have been so much easier to access a medical school and and of course boy. 00:27:37 Speaker 6: It's nightmare fuel. Okay, well anyway, but but yes, I think, Tasha, I think I think you're right. I think it is you know, I think the more you dig into specifics of this it is, the richer it becomes, and the more it comes about one guy's uh life. But that's as as the story of a life. It's also works really well well. 00:27:54 Speaker 5: As always when somebody tells me I'm right, I like to take a little pauge to just kind of bask in it. And we need to take a break anyway. So, given what you just said about how it just gets richer the deeper you dive into the details, we're going to take a short break and then come back and dive into some of those details. So here's one of the big questions of the movie for me, one of the big specific questions as opposed to the big cosmic questions. His father's last words conveyed to him are you don't have to And with the implication that there's kind of an ellipses there, you don't have to something that his father wasn't able to finish, and different people have interpreted it as you don't have to go to medical school after all, Or it could be something as small as like you don't have to come here and see me I'm doing fine, which of course his father is wrong about. But other people have taken it as kind of a big cosmic like you don't have to do what they tell you, or you don't have to make the same choices all the time, or you don't have to do anything. What what do you make of like the open endedness of the question and how that ends up being sort of a

theme for the movie. 00:29:11 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I would have taken it, you know, maybe partially in reference to medical school, but also that's a sense of obligation not only to his father but but to society and and what is expected of the take to do right. I mean, he he had this point in his life, has the opportunity to explore a little bit and also to kind of think for himself and not be tethered to one philosophy or one you know, political notion or another. He can kind of move around, or. 00:29:45 Speaker 6: One beautiful sad woman versus all the other beautiful aren't there. 00:29:49 Speaker 5: I mean, it's it's possible that it's just very hard to live in Poland, possibly as a woman, or maybe just in general. Certainly the like the older people we see also seem very sad. Some of the function is very said. It's just there's not a whole lot of non sadness. 00:30:04 Speaker 4: Though, I will say, I mean, I think that the communist in the first section or just the picture of communism is not young and on the rise really in this field. But it's very much like this is kind of where things are going, and they're kind of this is this aging decrepit once upon a time robust man is getting older and everything and all of that is kind of feeling like it's, you know, just kind of clinging to the end. 00:30:33 Speaker 6: The speech she gives about how you'll inevitably be disillusioned and bitter when you're my age, it's not it's not really a great recruitment tool. I don't think. 00:30:42 Speaker 5: Well, it seems to be applicable though, regardless of what path he chooses, unless he chooses a path that leads him to not make it to a ripe old age. You mentioned kind of the choices that he makes, the open mindedness that he has, and I'm I'm sort of curious, like what you see is I guess consistent about him from iteration to iteration, Like I mentioned that idea that he's at sea with his father's death, and like he's looking for a new father figure. But there were times when I had a hard time seeing the same person in these three iterations, because like the version of him who obsessively like sits down with his lover and both of them naked, and like openly weeps over the other people that she's had sex with while still forcing her against her will to tell him about about that is a little hard for me to reconcile with. Kind of the soft, open ended boy who talks quietly to Jesus about how all he wants out of Jesus is for him to exist, and like I'll never ask you for anything else again, but you know, could you please just exist? Like these are two very different iterations of the same seeker after the Truth, and I just I guess, I wonder what you see as sort of the consistent personality of a v tag through his his three lives here. 00:32:08 Speaker 6: I think one thing is he tends to go all in. Uh, he's a lost person who finds what he's you know, things, he finds what he's looking for in each one and commits to it until you know, until that turns against him. But he is, you know, perfectly happy being a good communist and being the good anti communist radical, or just being the good husband and father until you know, he pushes those things as far as he can take them. 00:32:36 Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm reminded. I wonder if Kislawski at this point he surely had seen the Conformist right by by Bertolucci. I mean, it seemed like a lot of similarities between those two characters of young men who are very impressionable and you know, in both cases kind of passive, right. I mean, you know this is I think we can see Viteig as somebody who you know, maybe he takes some chances, maybe he seems enthusiastic, but he's very impressionable, like he can be manipulated, he can be you know, he doesn't. He's not sure of himself, and and that kind of allows him to be tossed in these different directions depending on which one, which you know, a destiny we're in. 00:33:23 Speaker 5: I wonder what you make of his relationship to the three different women that he experiences and is three different timelines, because again I feel that his relationship with them is very different. That he comes across as like a different kind of lover. And I don't find that to be an inconsistency so much as it's reflective of the way the person that we choose as our partner, the way the person that we date or the person we marry brings out different aspects of us, like based on their own personality. But these these are three very different relationships that he ends up in. 00:33:59 Speaker 4: I mean, it seems like in every case the women are more are more certain of who they are than he is, right, I mean, you know, I mean it almost amos. It's almost consistent with all of the people that that he meets. He's the one who's kind of that that kind of leaf that's drifting around in the in the wind, and they're the wind, you know, They're the ones who are kind of exerting their personalities and their influence and on him and affecting his behavior. 00:34:28 Speaker 6: That might explain why he is the way he is in that first timeline that you referenced, which does even consistent where he's he's jealous and pushy. It could just you know, he's with the most brittle and unhappy of the three women Ziska in that timeline, so it could be a comment on that. You know, he certainly falls in the third timeline, falls into very pleasant domestic blissfulness with a woman who seems, you know, to support that's it is it is. I think it's an just ance, but I do I never really thought the character was inconsistent. They always told it the same character in me, but the behavior was quite different in each timeline. 00:35:10 Speaker 5: I feel like his relationship with Zushka in the first timeline can also be explained to some degree by the fact that, like they kind of describe each other as their first loves, you know, they have a of like a connection going back to early days. And it seems like somebody that he meets as an adult and sees only as an

adult, he can have a relationship with her just you know, in the moment, without being obsessed with her past. But somebody that he kind of feels like he separated from and maybe if he hadn't, she wouldn't have ever been with anybody else, she would have ever had any of the memories she had. Maybe that's just a place where he's seeing a different way that their path could have gone, which is not something apart from the little side conversations that crop up in these stories about chants, which I find it very interesting that in one case he's the one being told like, oh, the fact that we're here is just a coincidence of timing, and he denies it, and in another one he brings it up himself and ascribes things to chance. But in yeah, in the case of his relationship with her, first of all, I find that relationship very creepy, but second of all, it seemed like it was just him thinking maybe about what could have been and how he would have been different for it, in a way that maybe doesn't come up as much in the other timelines. 00:36:33 Speaker 6: I guess it kind of brings us to another question about vtag or Partexes, is do we like him? Do we find him sympathetic? I'll say I must I do. I don't always like what he does, but I think the film is really good about putting us making us see the world from his point of view, however different those worlds are from vision to vision, that it's hard not to feel for him. 00:36:58 Speaker 5: I don't know that I like I love him as a character, as a protagonist that I feel strongly with him at every step of the journey, just because those journeys are so different. He feels a little wishy washy to me. He feels a little needy in some places and little controlling in others. But there are absolutely moments where just his innate I want to say goodness. And that's maybe a little hard to take. I mean, given the kind of the precipitating incident is like running through a train station, knocking people over, causing an old lady to lose her money, like knocking the beer out of somebody's hand, slamming into a train conductor, like all of these things kind of speak to a selfishness, which is he's so sorry. Sometimes he's a very youthful character, and of course he's grieving. You know, he's in the moment of some of the greatest pain of his life. So there's all sorts of excuses for some of his worst behavior. But some of his bad behavior, like I just I come back more than anything to the first sequence and him going to the asylum. Among the drug users, he actually tried to help one of them escape his minders on the train, just out of a feeling a fellow feeling of not wanting to see somebody in captivity, and then he takes up the charge to go break up this protest, seemingly just because he's doing what he's told. But once he gets there, he very clearly like empathizes with the drug addicts and empathizes with what they've been through, but also still cares about the lives of the doctors and the orderlies, and when he sees an opportunity to save their lives, he acts on it. When he sees that his actions may result in the death of the drug addicts, he rushes back into captivity and potentially towards his own death. And that moment in the cage where the addict splashes fluid all over the place and goes to light it on fire and thinks it's gasoline and he thinks he's about to die in agony, Like, it's very hard to not empathize with that moment and and empathize with the protagonist who chose that moment over his own escape because he was trying to help people. 00:39:13 Speaker 4: You know, he throws some punches too righteous, Some righteous punches get thrown in this right. 00:39:19 Speaker 5: Well, he certainly wails on that train conductor. 00:39:21 Speaker 4: No, no, no, in the in the office against the Is it that the first sequence with with the uh where where gets gets detained and he is that? Is that right? Is the first sequence where he comes back and slugs the functionary. 00:39:40 Speaker 5: Yeah, Adam his handler. 00:39:42 Speaker 4: Yeah, so that that that shows a little bit of you know, so so maybe in that sense, you know, he's not quite as passive as maybe I seem to suggest that that he was. Maybe he you know, he maybe when he gets himself in these situations, starts to get a sense of what's happening and what he feels is, you know, right and wrong. He's capable of taking action, and he's also capable of just being a flawed person of just not of not realizing. You know, I don't think he really realizes what he's done to Jushka until it happens, you know, in terms of you know, in terms of kind of making her life a lot worse. You know that that was just seems like a like an error on his part, which again that's a human thing too to make, to make mistakes. 00:40:30 Speaker 5: Yeah, and I can't fully parse out why that happens if it's just complete thoughtlessness on his part that leads him to expose the fact that his girlfriend is involved in these illegal underground activities that can get her detained and possibly tortured and murdered, or he just he's going he's you know, conversing with his friend Adam in a very like, well, of course we can all get along kind of way. Like both of those responses are pretty naive, and you know, it's it's an issue he's so naive in a country and a time where that can get you killed by the government. 00:41:06 Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think he really realizes. It takes him that stretch to really realize what he's gotten himself into, right, And I mean like like he and part part of that is being as naive as he is. I mean, that's that's what we do as people, we uh, and when we're young, we have to learn things, and you know, sometimes we learn things the hard way, and sometimes people who we don't want to get hurt end up learning things the hard way because we screwed up. So again, in that sense, very human. 00:41:35 Speaker 5: I feel like one of the important things to note here is that the story isn't just about his

choices and how they change things. Much like in Run Lola Run, where one of the you know, plot ARCS is heavily influenced by what the what a dog in Lola's apartment building does? It seems here like exactly how the train conductor responds, like where he is and again moment, and how he acts where the drunk with the giant beer is and exactly how he reacts like these things shape whether he makes the train. The question of like who is who shows up where an these timelines is very different. How much do you think Kilowski is saying here about it isn't just the choices we make. It isn't just you know, fate leading us in one direction. It's just I mean, as the title says, blind chance, it's the butterfly effect. 00:42:29 Speaker 6: Before the butterfly effect had been coined as a term. You know, you know, whether or not that guy gets his coined to buy the beer changes everything. 00:42:38 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think he's given you a lot of different things to think about in terms of chance. I mean, and there is something as simple as blind chance of knocking into somebody, of not making a train, of being the wrong place at the wrong time or the right place at the right time, all of that stuff. And then there are just situations that present them, and that Vitech and all of us have to come think our ways through those situations. One thing I was thinking about too, and this surely had to be an influence on Kislowski is his countryman Vida. Under his Vida particularly, there's this movie that Vida did like that it was like, look at three hour film i'd like to say, called Man of Marble and Man of Marble Zwayne in nineteen seventy seven is a movie about so much of this in the sense that it's about how people are rendered almost helpless by the forces of history. I mean, Man of Marble is about this young filmmaker woman as it happens, who's like a film student, who is who decides to make to figure out what happened to this bricklayer who in the fifties was this propaganda figure. It was a hero Man of Marble, as the title implies, and then was rendered obscure as he fell out of favor and as the historical wind started to shift. And I just feel like that kind of that's kind of in the air in a movie like Blind Chance, of people only being able to exert so much control over very powerful political and historical forces. That sort of kick him around. 00:44:28 Speaker 5: I certainly think that's true, especially given that all three of these arcs, and in the first case he can't take the trip that he wanted to take because the protests are going on. In the second he can't take the trip because of his own politics, but we still see that the protests are kicking in and with the implication that everything's going to change. And then in the third one, he dies for reasons completely outside of his control and seemingly completely outside of his choices, but again while while making a trip, And all three cases were kind of back to his fate be being determined by a mode of transport that he makes or doesn't make, that he gets on or doesn't get on. 00:45:09 Speaker 6: Well, i'specifically attempt to leave Poland exactly which Poland becomes kind of kind of a trap in some ways. 00:45:17 Speaker 5: And in two cases it continues to trap him for better or for worse, and in one case it doesn't, like distinctly for worse. So I guess I just I wondered. I certainly wondered watching the first arc for the first time, just like, why are we stopping the story here? It just seemed like, you know, his exasperation over not being able to like go to France just seemed like a very weird place for what seemed like a big cosmic story about choices to end on. But I guess it ends up with a lot more shape once you see all of the pieces put in place, which I guess is very Kislowski in general. 00:45:53 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's tidy, but not not tidy at the same time. I mean, even like the structure of this movie overall is a little deliberately oblong, because I mean, because you're not just immediately thrown into three timelines of equal length, you know, you get you get a lot of the beginning, and then the first segment, the first of the three, is the longest of the three, and it's it's all you know, I think, I think he's He's you know, it allows things to be a little bit looser in terms of where he goes, but I'm not sure. Yeah, I can't really. It doesn't feel arbitrary. I guess where he ends up cutting out of like that first segment to me, but I can't really explain why that's that's the moment. 00:46:38 Speaker 6: Well, I just say, everyone with a trip that doesn't happen a trip to Paris and stuff. 00:46:43 Speaker 5: Hell yeah, yeah, it still feels kind of arbitrary to me until, like, as I say, you see the whole thing in the full picture comes into effect. 00:46:51 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that's true. 00:46:52 Speaker 5: That's very part for the course for Keithlawski's later career, where he kept telling these stories that you know, a film would tell a story, but you couldn't really see the impact of the overall plan until you'd seen, you know, both a short film about love and a short film about death, or until you'd seen a bunch of the Decalogue movies, or until you'd seen Red, White, and Blue, which each tell very distinctive stories but in a way that's both meant to rhyme and in the case of Red, kind of all comes together at the end with you know, the characters resurfacing in one place, which is something we also get to see here. So I guess just kind of to close out, like, are there other ways in which you feel this film reflects Kilsky's like storytelling interests, political interests, filmmaking interests. As I said at the beginning, it kind of feels like a Rosetta stone that just like piles up a whole lot of the things he's interested in in one place, sometimes in more nascent forms than others. 00:47:55 Speaker 4: Yeah, it does, and it's and I mean the cool thing about Kislowski's career is that it

really is an evolution. I mean you really see. I bet you could watch his films in any random order, at least if you were to group that, say, the Colors Trilogy together. Anyway, you watch them any random order and be able to then lay out exactly when they were made in you know, in progression. I think there's there there's such a an arc to his career. I mean, you know, I mean you talked about I haven't seen any of those more those documentaries are more documentary like movies. But but Blind Chance has has that kind of look to them. I mean, is later films double a veronique. The Colors Trilogy are quite you know, the color, the use of color is obviously quite striking in those. But then these these you know, these themes are present all along. I just think the way he presents them is evolves over over time. And and I really like the music too, is such a that's another element of this movie, what with the you know, he uses the score really sparingly. I think just really, you'll only really hear it during the trains sequences that before. But it's so good. It's such a good score. And I think that's his composer later on too. 00:49:16 Speaker 6: Right, it's Vults Keelar, who I don't think is his composer for the Three Colors films. So that's that's the proctog. Oh okay, okay, yeah, yeah, but anyway, I'm pressing all those horribly. 00:49:31 Speaker 4: But but yeah, right though though the composer of this, of this film, I knew I recognized the name, did the score for brob Stoker's Dracula. Oh wow, which is pretty cool. Another really cool score. So music was was, you know, an important, really important part of you know, the Three Colors trilogy Blue especially, but you could see some of the roots of that here too. 00:49:57 Speaker 5: Well, there's a lot more to talk about in terms of blind chances, big messages about religion, philosophy, chance, choice, love, the future, the past, how all of these things fit together. But we're going to have to consider those next time. For the moment, would love to hear your thoughts on blind Chance and Christoph Koslowski and anything else in the world of film that you'd like to discuss email us at comments at next pictureshow dot net if you want to share any responses with us and with other listeners, and we'll be back in a minute with a preview of our next episode. That's it for this episode of The Next Picture Show. In our next episode, we're going to compare Blind Chants with Daniel Schinert and Daniel Kwan's Everything Everywhere, All at Once, which starts with a similar idea about chance and choice shaping our lives into a wide variety of radically different stories, then blows it all out into all martial arts special effects spectacular crammed with alternating silly and serious ideas in a remarkably unique way that takes an immense amount of unpacking after the fact after a slow rollout. The film is currently in theaters nationwide. Look for that episode next Tuesday on your podcatcher of choice. For add free versions of the podcast and for extra content, including letters from other listeners and our responses, find us on Patreon at patreon dot com slash Next Picture Show. We're eager to answer your feedback on Feedback Friday. We recently talked about Steven Spielberg's voice as a filmmaker in Ai Chloe Show's voice as a filmmaker in Marvel's Eternals, and the downside of packing filmmakers into tight little pigeonholes based on their past work. You can find us at next pictureshow dot net and on Twitter at Next Picture Pod if you want to keep track of when new episodes drop until next week? Have you ever thought about a career writing protest songs seems to be a worthwhile skill to have in every multiverse.