Amator (1979)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Krzysztof Kieslowski

Writers:

Krzysztof Kieslowski (dialogue)
Jerzy Stuhr (dialogue)

Release Date:

27 March 1981 (Finland)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Filip buys an 8mm movie camera when his first child is born. Because it's the first camera in town,...

Plot Keywords:

Hospital | Milk | Train | Singing | Breast Feeding

Awards:

5 wins

Cast

Jerzy Stuhr	...	Filip Mosz
Malgorzata Zabkowska	...	Irka Mosz
Ewa Pokas	...	Anna Wlodarczyk
Stefan Czyzewski	...	Director
Jerzy Nowak	...	Stanislaw Osuch
Tadeusz Bradecki	...	Witek Jachowicz
Marek Litewka	...	Piotrek Krawczyk
Boguslaw Sobczuk	...	Kedzierski
Krzysztof Zanussi	...	Himself
Andrzej Jurga	...	Himself
Alicja Bienicewicz	...	Jaska
Tadeusz Rzepka	...	Wawrzyniec
Aleksandra Kisielewska	...	Hania, secretary
Wlodzimierz Maciudzinski	...	Stelmaszczyk
Roman Stankiewicz	...	Czeslaw

Also Known As:

Camera Buff

Runtime:

117 min

Country:

Poland

Language:

Polish

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Hong Kong:IIA | UK:12 (DVD rating) | UK:A (original rating) | Finland:K-12 | Hungary:14 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Kraków, Poland

Company:

Film Polski

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Lekcja polskiego kina (2002)

Soundtrack:

Walc e-moll

oddly touching and quite good

A man spends two months salary to buy a Russian movie camera to take pictures of his new baby daughter but finds himself far more interested in filming other things as time goes by. He even begins a club at work and ends up being tasked to film a company celebration, after which he achieves a certain small fame. This spurs him on to film other things and escape his drab existence to the point where he's neglecting his wife and baby daughter to the point where she takes the baby and leaves. Now it seems that on occasion there have been things that he's filming that are causing problems, not that he knows, but he's exposing certain things that he didn't know about that don't set too well with his superiors. And when his zeal for film-making leads to trouble for his boss then he's forced to rethink his actions and finds himself regretting what he's doing. An interesting look at Poland and life there while it was still under communist rule. It's an oddly touching film because you want to see this man rise above his nothing life but then he realizes what's really more important. Recommended. 8 out of 10.