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If American TV was this good, would we ever go to the movies? In a series of eight loosely connected stories, Polish master Krzysztof Zanussi (Life As a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease, The Year of the Quiet Sun) explores life in modern Poland. Like Krzysztof Kieslowski's brilliant Decalogue, which Zanussi produced, Weekend Stories comprises small, self-contained films connected by themes that weave through the series: the connections between urban and rural life, the legacy of communism echoing through contemporary life, the lovely opening image repeated in variation in each film.

Zanussi's style is modest and effortless, and he directs with a subtlety and a sense of grace often missing from contemporary movies. Some of the modest moral tales are powerful and profound ("A Woman's Business" and "Little Faith"), others light and humble ("Deceptive Charm" and "The Soul Sings"), but all are sincere and affecting stories rooted in the delicacies of human nature: kindness, love, faith, sin, and forgiveness. The rich portrait they paint of contemporary Poland is warmed by Zanussi's love for his fumbling characters and hope for the future. --Sean Axmaker ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Very watchable!
I love the Decalogue, but I could never watch every film in a single sitting. With this, each story went by as quickly as I could put them into the player. This doesn't necessarily mean they were fluff, however, or that I felt the viewer was "let off" easily. The subtitles run a little on VHS and I wish I could have purchased it on DVD. The cinematography is breathtaking so maybe it's a good thing each is only 50 minutes long, all without a single car chase! Each story is also different from all the others so there's a sense of unpredictability. But what's important is that when it's all said and done, these are films that can be appreciated by most westerners and not just eastern cinema buffs. They can't watch and not love at least one of them!!!

Inspiring episode
Although I tend to write some comment on the series of Zanussi's _Weekend_Stories_, I have to confess that I only saw one, _Soul_Sings_ so far. However, to conclude the style from the five Zanussi's films I just saw at the Golden Horse Film Festival in Taiwan this year, it's very easy to be attracted by the director's way of telling stories via camera.

_Soul_Sings_ is a story about a rather simple moral lesson--if you help those in need, you will have rewards some day. The protagonist is a substitute tenor vocalist who just came to Warsaw because of the contract with the orchestra. At the freezing and raining night before his public performance at the New Year's concert, which is regarded as the touchstone for him to be a successful vocalist, his neighbor, an old lady asks him to take her dog to veterinarian. Taking the risk of catching a cold, he hesitates at first but finally decides to give hand to the old lady and her dog badly-illed. Unfortunately, he find that he loses his voice the next morning when he wakes up. Can the old lady's gratitude for him save him from the end of his career as a distinguished vocalist? You've got to watch it/them on your own.

One thing that makes Zanussi a bit different from his compatriot, Kieslowski is that he holds a brighter and positive attitude toward the challenges of human beings. (That is, there is a hope where there is a life. Zanussi personally "admitted" this as well.) Such a difference simply makes Zanussi's works easier to watch but still with the exactly the same power and density as found in Kieslowski's.

If you have any opportunity to have access to Krzysztof Zanussi's films, you will not regret. And I think it's a good start from his _Weekend_Stories_, not only because they are shorter but also mature. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

QUIXOTIC OBSESSIONS
For the late Krzysztof Kieslowski, celebrated director of RED, WHITE, and BLUE, life is an undivine comedy--and film-making a far stranger farce. No doubt that the absurdities that this Pole faced througout his life afforded him a peculiar brand and blend of pessimism, humanism, and humour which informs his works.In CAMERA BUFF, originally entitled AMATOR in Polish with the implication on the word amateur, the film-maker is Filip, a factory worker. He acquiresan 8 mm camera with the intention of filming his daughter's development. This biographic projects soon develops into other things, such as bearing witness to the society around him. It comes to a point where the authorities cautions him in his filmic projects. Filip's double life takes over and he is slowly becomes isolated from his family and friends. In the end Filip finally faces up to his obsessions. What began as a humourous movie about obsessive cinephilia turns and, later, totalitarian film-making, doubles back into a study of human vulnerablity. Filip's final gesture is revisited by Kieslowski, the man behind the camera, in a scene towards the end of of his last movie RED. The autobiographical is not far away from Kieslowski's meditation on politics and art. Kieslowski started out as a documentarist. Once, it turns out that he may have recorded a murderer stuffing her victim's dead body in a train locker. When the authorities seized the cameras for his documentary, it turns out that the event was not filmed. In addition, Kieslowski offers fragments of a documentary in CAMERA BUFF. This documentary within the movie was once a potential project but was turned down by the censors. Kieslowski not only relates to his characters, the 'not fulfilled' as one commentator puts it, but may be populated by his echoes, shades or twins. Actual incidents and personages intrude upon the fictional world. Stories get repeated with slight variations. Lives are lived simultaneously in different parts of the world. Some are born too soon or too late, depending upons one's point of view, but all are after the same things in life.Kieslowski is a moralist film-maker andhe eschews a heavy-handed moralism for a compassionate world view. No one is entirely evil and we must understand them, he would suggest. And so his characters may seem lost and clueless, but in the end Kieslowski offers them a sense of ambigious redemption and release. Their lives and ours are part of a human comedy afterall. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

QUIXOTIC OBSESSIONS
For the late Krzysztof Kieslowski, celebrated director of RED, WHITE, and BLUE, life is an undivine comedy--and film-making a far stranger farce. No doubt that the absurdities that this Pole faced througout his life afforded him a peculiar brand and blend of pessimism, humanism, and humour which informs his works.In CAMERA BUFF, originally entitled AMATOR in Polish with the implication on the word amateur, the film-maker is Filip, a factory worker. He acquiresan 8 mm camera with the intention of filming his daughter's development. This biographic projects soon develops into other things, such as bearing witness to the society around him. It comes to a point where the authorities cautions him in his filmic projects. Filip's double life takes over and he is slowly becomes isolated from his family and friends. In the end Filip finally faces up to his obsessions. What began as a humourous movie about obsessive cinephilia turns and, later, totalitarian film-making, doubles back into a study of human vulnerablity. Filip's final gesture is revisited by Kieslowski, the man behind the camera, in a scene towards the end of of his last movie RED. The autobiographical is not far away from Kieslowski's meditation on politics and art. Kieslowski started out as a documentarist. Once, it turns out that he may have recorded a murderer stuffing her victim's dead body in a train locker. When the authorities seized the cameras for his documentary, it turns out that the event was not filmed. In addition, Kieslowski offers fragments of a documentary in CAMERA BUFF. This documentary within the movie was once a potential project but was turned down by the censors. Kieslowski not only relates to his characters, the 'not fulfilled' as one commentator puts it, but may be populated by his echoes, shades or twins. Actual incidents and personages intrude upon the fictional world. Stories get repeated with slight variations. Lives are lived simultaneously in different parts of the world. Some are born too soon or too late, depending upons one's point of view, but all are after the same things in life.Kieslowski is a moralist film-maker andhe eschews a heavy-handed moralism for a compassionate world view. No one is entirely evil and we must understand them, he would suggest. And so his characters may seem lost and clueless, but in the end Kieslowski offers them a sense of ambigious redemption and release. Their lives and ours are part of a human comedy afterall. ... Read more