YULIANG LIU
Shot in 1991, "Two Flowers" has long been regarded as Kieslowski's masterpiece of transformation. As a Polish director, Kieslowski is regarded in the world as a master of European art house film, and his status is quite intriguing in itself. In the first half of his life in the socialist camp of Poland, Kieslowski experienced from drama director, documentary director, to the political theme of the film shooting, his Ten Commandments because of a strong religious meaning, renowned in Europe. And his political subject matter makes him have some kind of identity outside the system and the color of fighting against the system. With the collapse of Eastern Europe and the collapse of Poland's socialist system, Kieslowski shifted the focus of his films from Poland to France. He first shot two flowers set in Poland and France, and then his trilogy Red, Blue and White, directly cast his eyes on France, explaining the core values of France, democracy and fraternity in the way of film. Of course, this theme film is also a continuation of its earlier style, an obvious successor to The Ten Commandments. But the shift in the central theme of his films is clear.
Like many outside artists in Eastern Europe, Kieslowski is experiencing a certain shift in subject matter expression. From the Eastern Europe as the center of the field of vision, to France as the center of the investigation. This has happened, to varying degrees, to other artists, such as the Czech Kundera and the poet Milosch, who was also from Poland. The reason why there was such a change must be directly related to the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe in 1989, because the socialist system I had fought against all my life collapsed overnight without warning, and the theme of absurdity and loneliness that depicted people's survival under the socialist background was obviously unable to continue. Many of them have come to Paris, the centre of European art, to experiment with new themes. After Kundera settled in France, he began to write in French, and his subjects began to become French. Kieslowski went through a similar transformation(Hu, 2017).
So this kind of transition period film, if there is a little description of the background of '89, does it mean that they continue to discuss the political theme? If so, there are political implications to such a discussion.
There are only two scenes from the film "Two Flowers" about the upheaval in Poland. One, of course, begins with a truck towing a huge statue of a waving socialist leader, but the camera flashes too quickly to tell who it is. But the audience can probably guess that the statue is Lenin. Throughout Eastern Europe, with the disintegration of Eastern Europe, large numbers of Lenin statues have been torn down and defaced in public squares. The removal of Lenin's statue was also portrayed in the German film Farewell Lenin as a symbol of the collapse of the socialist system(Pu and Wu, 1996).
At the other, France's Veronica, on a tour of eastern Europe, occasionally caught sight of the protests in Poland. As riot police stood up behind their shields, Poland's Veronica walked straight out of the crowd, regardless of where they were heading. A similar expression can be found in Bertolucci's A Dream in Paris, when the students clash with the police while Isabella, Leo and others turn a blind eye.
So the question is, if a film is about the great changes of The Times, especially the revolution, then is the director expressing his political attitude? Under what circumstances, the viewer should assume that the film's author is discussing politics. Personally, I don't think Kieslowski is talking about a radical change in the socialist camp, because in a movie that's nearly 100 minutes long, the political scene in the movie is less than a minute, which is pitifully small. If this is to be a discussion, obviously such a discussion is too weak. It is easy to over explain if you force the time background to make footnotes for the film. The interpretation of "two living flowers" obviously has such tendency. For example, the death of Veronica in Poland represents the fall of Eastern Europe under the Eastern and Western camps, while the feeling of Veronica in France is regarded as Europe represented by Western Europe, and Eastern Europe is included into its own camp. Therefore, Eastern Europe is aphasia in its integration into Europe. This explanation is rather dull and feeble.
So what is the image of Veronica in Poland? Is she positive and brave, or sad and lost and not free? In fact, there is very little representation of the Eastern European political system in the film. I don't know where Veronica's feeling of loss and freedom in Poland comes from. In the film, Poland's Veronica, though appearing less than a third of the time, quickly dies. What can be perceived from the lens is her pursuit of dreams, even at the cost of life. In the choir watching the singing rehearsal of her, not free to hum up, by chance the head of the choir praised the singing is good. Veronica immediately sought training as a singing teacher, hoping to become a professional singing performer. Although she found it difficult to sing high notes during the training, she did not want to give up and succeeded in getting recognized by the choir and becoming the lead singer. Unfortunately, she collapsed on stage during a formal singing group performance and died immediately(He, 2008).
The theme of Kieslowski's Blue is freedom, and when the protagonist Julie is free, she gets out of her cage. In the face of the death of her husband and daughter and her husband's betrayal, Julie felt unprecedented imprisonment, fate for Julie a cruel test, when Julie broke free of the plight of fate, take the initiative to choose to let go of their own, they found their freedom. And Poland's Veronica and Jolie are so similar, so Veronica is such an unforgettable character, even if the fate of the pressure, still can forge ahead with her own free image. So just appearing in a third of the movie is memorable.
Reference List:
1. Xinyu Hu. (2017). Volatile times walk alone explorer (a master's degree thesis, chongqing university). https://kns.cnki.net/KCMS/detail/detail.aspx? dbname=CMFD201801&filename=1017838120.nh
2. Jian Pu, Lan Wu.(1996). Kieslowski Film Studies. Journal of Beijing Film Academy (01),108-167.
3. Zhen He. (2008). Two Living Flowers: Another Me in the World. Film Review (04),41-42. DOI :10.16583/j.cnki.52-1014/j.2008.04.038.
