He regarded editing as the key creative process and worked with extraordinary dedication in the cutting-room. For The Double Life of Veronique, for example, he edited more than 20 separate versions before eventually coming up with the innovative structure of the final film.After Red, Kieslowski announced that he was finished with film-making, and retired. For the first time, an audience could see him smile."As a director, Kieslowski came to loathe the exhausting business of filming. "In Poland, the media image of him at that time was that he was a very sad, even unpleasant man. Journalists used to say he was cold because he sometimes answered stupid questions: `yes', `no' and `if you think so' In my film, we showed the atmosphere that he made.
The most optimistic thing I can say is `I'm still alive'.""I wanted to show what Krzysztof was like as a person," says Wierzbicki. The film's title is taken from the director's laconic observation: "When Americans ask me `How are you?' I say `I'm so-so.' They immediately think something tragic has happened You can't say `so-so' You have to say `Well' or `Very well'. He could put his hand in the mouth of the most dangerous dog and nothing would happen."In 1995, Wierzbicki inadvertently became the keeper of Kieslowski's last film testament when he made I'm So-So for Danish television.In the film, Kieslowski talks elliptically and with characteristic intelligence about his career and beliefs. "The wildest beasts became calm and happy when Krzysztof made friends with them," he recalls "There was a warmth in him animals could feel.
He even testifies to Kieslowski's Dr Dolittle-like rapport with animals. He remembers the film-maker, who died three years ago this week, as a devoted family man, a passionate smoker and a skilful stunt driver who delighted in sudden, perfect 180-degree turns. "He loved to make things or repair machines and he was ambitious about it. If you said to him: `Krzysztof, help me because it's very difficult and I'm not very good at this kind of thing', he would try so hard to make it work to show you it wasn't so difficult." Wierzbicki worked as Kieslowski's assistant on his early documentary films and later directed I'm So-So, the definitive documentary about him, which is to be screened for the first time in Britain this weekend as part of a short festival dedicated to the late Polish director.Patently, Wierzbicki still misses his friend, and has a wealth of stories attesting to his humanity, humour and his surprising skills. "If you had a problem - with life, with marriage, with something in the house - he would come at once," recalls Krzysztof Wierzbicki.
If he hadn't been a visionary film director, Krzysztof Kieslowski would have made a terrific odd-job man. According to one of his oldest friends, the creator of haunting, enigmatic masterpieces such as The Double Life of Veronique and Three Colours: Red derived immense satisfaction from putting up shelves and mending toasters. Yet this film is made of sterner stuff, and delivers an ending of uncompromising bleakness: one imagines it tested very badly with preview audiences, which should earn Pellington and his writer, Ehren Kruger, respect for refusing to go the Hollywood way.Indeed, the beginning and end of the movie are so unusual it almost encourages you to overlook the shortcomings of the middle Two out of three ain't bad.. Is that a wave or a fascist salute Oliver throws to Michael? Would Michael really take his students to the FBI murder scene where his wife died and practically accuse the authorities of a cover-up? The climax, with the gallant prof slaloming through city traffic in pursuit of a terrorist bomber, is galumphingly soundtracked and unhappily recalls the dire thriller Blown Away, in which Bridges traded Irish accents with explosives-genius Tommy Lee Jones. The psychological intricacy of its early stages gradually gives way to the more straightforward demands of a conspiracy thriller, and the clues to its meaning become steadily more pronounced, less plausible.
There's a Hitchcockian stealth in the patient accumulation of detail - neat domestic interiors, an awkward dinner party, kids playing war games - which serves to assure and unsettle both at once. The film examines the idea of the neighbourhood watch, but it's not burglars you're meant to watch for - it's your neighbours.It's in trying to close the plot's noose that Arlington Road rather loses its way. Pellington works up this atmosphere of creeping dread quite nicely in the first 45 minutes, even if he hasn't persuaded Bridges to pace his performance. But, once Michael gets the scent that something's amiss, he's as obsessive as James Stewart in Rear Window, convincing himself (if nobody else) that something dangerous lurks behind the facade across the street. "Are you teaching the Bill of Rights this semester, or is that not in your programme?" You can see her point.