Blind Chance (1987)

I don't recall ever learning about this movie before. It may have been recommended based on political controversy: The Polish government suppressed its release for six years, and part of it is still censored with a caption to indicate as much. I sure wasn't tempted by the Netflix description, which seemed way too vague and, in fact, illogical ("three diametrically opposite points of view"?). Regardless, the picture's popularity, including Martin Scorsese's endorsement, held promise.

Young man Witek (Bogusław Linda) has just lost his father and dropped out of med school, but those event have little bearing on the rest of the plot. From the moment he starts running for a departing train for whatever reason, we are treated to three alternate timelines based on what he may do next, particularly with regard to a stranger in his path. Each timeline sees him take a different political stance (communist, anticommunist, or neither) and a different love interest, two of them his exes.

I do not interpret this as a Run Lola Run scenario, where the protagonist apparently time-travels by force of will to retry with more savvy. More likely, writer-director Krzysztof Kieślowski poses what-ifs in which Witek is reset with no memory of what we've seen. After all, he catches the train only the first time but still tries again and again.

Alas, I didn't find it nearly as easy to follow as RLR. For one thing, being 42 minutes longer, it takes quite a while to reset at all, and when that happens, it's not immediately obvious (Witek doesn't die or anything first). The frenetic opening doesn't help our understanding of the setup. Then there's the fact that unlike Lola, Witek does not have a constant motive to tie it all together. I had to look up a synopsis later.

In truth, I didn't get much more out of that synopsis than I could have remembered with some effort. It's just that a lot of details, such as the many characters I haven't named, didn't exactly grab me upon viewing. Maybe I was too tired for alertness, or maybe a low-budget flick set in communist-run Poland really doesn't capture my interest, no matter how serious things get.

I like the general premise of BC for artistic exploration. I just wish it could have been less bleak in both the milieu and all three endings. No wonder other filmmakers took the idea in other directions, albeit not necessarily smarter.