This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Bradatan, C. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Transcendence and History in Krzysztof Kieslowski's Blind Chance

The article examines Krzysztof Kieslowski's Blind Chance (Przypadek, 1981) as a film with a distinct philosophical significance. According to the interpretation proposed, in Blind Chance Kieslowski touches on both universal philosophical topics (death, meaninglessness, quest for certainty and truth, deciphering silence) and "local" themes (East-European historical pessimism, geography as destiny, "terror of history"). In spite of Kieslowski's self-declared religious agnosticism, Blind Chance could be—thanks even to the aesthetics of the film—read as a paradoxical theological statement, not so much about God per se, as about the necessity of his existence. In the same vein, the film occasions a series of meditations on historical fate and the role of geography in history, about hope and hopelessness, existential exhaustion, and legacies of silence.

Key Words: Polish cinema • philosophical films • God's existence • God as a narrator • meaninglessness • deciphering silence • terror of history

East European Politics & Societies, Vol. 22, No. 2, 425-446 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0888325408315770


CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?