Views of a Retired Night Porter

In 1977 Krzysztof Kieślowski shot the film Night Porter's Point of View. This important work that emerged out a pessimistic wave in Polish documentary film depicts the essence of the relationship between man and the communist regime. This working-class porter is a representative of those who faithfully serve the regime. Regulations mean more than people, says the man who oversees the lives of others. In 2005 the Austrian director Andreas Horvath visited the retired porter in his one-room flat in the outskirts of Warsaw and filmed a second version of this film hero. His film not only reveals a polarity in the dualistic portrait of the man in the documentary, it also captures the transformation of Polish life over the past thirty years. In his work Kieślowski primarily drew attention to the mechanisms of forced submission and the methods the authorities used to achieve their goals. Depiction as such this icon of real socialism could generate a moral anxiety. By contrast, Horvath is trying to understand without prejudice the life of this man who was once that icon. (Doc Alliance Films)