I watched a movie with a few possible scenarios: “What would happen if...?” This time it was Krzysztof Kieslowski's film "The Case"/Przypadek, 1981. The film was shot in 1981, but was released only in early 1987, and in a reduced form, for censorship reasons. I watched a restored version where I couldn’t recover just one scene. When the film came out, Kieslevsky was criticized, both pro- and anti-government. And the whole thing was that the director was indifferent to the political changes of that time in Poland, so he tried to show the hero from three sides, and even choosing one side, the hero remained ethical, that is, he did not fall into extremes, remained a decent guy.
The film actually begins with one of the endings, which we understand only by watching the film. The main character Vitek Dlugos (Boguslav Linda) is studying in the fourth year of medical school, his father is seriously ill and soon dies, which Vitek is experiencing very hard, so much so that he even decides to interrupt his studies, takes academic leave and begins to look for himself.
We see three possible scenarios, each of them begins with the stage at the station, when he decides to leave Poznan for Warsaw, runs after the train that has already departed from the platform, the first time he catches the train, the other two times he does not have time.
In the first story, we see how he, having met on the train with an old communist, who nevertheless served in prison, because he was an evader, through him, gets acquainted with a functionary, through whom he gets into a youth organization that cooperates with the special services with all the ensuing consequences and accidentally blurts out to him about the clandestine affairs of his girlfriend (the dissemination of literature), because of which she is detained. Upon learning of this, he beats this figure, but his girlfriend does not forgive him, closing the door before him, the planned trip to France breaks down, he is not given a passport.
In the second story, he is unable to catch up with the train, accidentally encounters a guard at the station, for which he is sentenced to 30 days of community service, where he meets a young guy, through whom he then joins an underground organization that prints and distributes illegal literature and leaflets. Accidentally, at one party, he meets a childhood friend who left some time ago with his father to Denmark, with his sister, an affair occurs, although his sister is married. After a while, he decides to be baptized and begins to believe in God. He is again offered to go to France, but then he refuses his passport, the issuance of which involves cooperation with the security service. When he comes home, he is surprised to find his aunt, who was considered an ideological communist, listening to Radio Free Europe.
In the third story, he again fails to catch the train, but at the station he sees his college girlfriend, who came there to conduct him. And then a successful story begins - he returns to the institute, they successfully graduate, he gets married. Their son is growing up, everything is going well at work, he does not adjoin anyone, refusing both to join the party and to sign a petition for the release of the arrested son of the dean. The dean proposes to replace him on a trip to Libya, where he was supposed to give several lectures, he agrees, though rescheduling the trip to another date because of his wife's birthday. His wife timidly offers him not to go, but he does not agree and leaves. And here we see the ending with which the film began.
As we understand it, the director simply offers to reflect on what life is in general and how easily it can be changed under the influence of external, sometimes even not very significant and random events.
I liked the film, Bohuslav Linda played the main character well. Over time, the director was “rehabilitated” and now the film is among the best Polish films, even the same Slavoj Žižek, who considered it clumsy then, recently (in 2022) according to a survey by Sight and Sound magazine included it in the top ten best films of all time.