Probably the most pleasant surprise in last week's Oscar nominations was the inclusion of the superb Polish director Krysztof Kieslowski in the Best Director category for his film "Red."
Kieslowski has been making films for more than 20 years, but he has just begun to receive recognition outside of Europe, which is a shame because each of the five Kieslowski films I've seen is hugely impressive. What I like most about the director is his attitude toward things: he is a cold, detached observer of life, but he's wise enough to recognize that you can't be cynical about everything. Sometimes real emotion warrants genuine respect; some things mean too much to be made fun of. That's why the final moments of his films, such as in "White" where a husband looks into the window of his imprisoned wife's cell and struggles for a final chance at connection, are so powerful. Our ability to laugh at the strangeness of human behavior is taken away from us, and we're left with genuine feeling -- usually pain, devastation or overwhelming grief.
What all of the Kieslowski films I've seen are essentially about is human connection -- the need for it, the futility of it, the impossibility of achieving it -- in our contemporary universe. "Red" tells of a young model whose life intertwines with an old judge she meets by chance and a young judge who she never meets at all, despite the fact that their paths cross dozens of times throughout the film.
I saw "Red" a few months ago, but it is one of those all-too-rare movies that sticks with you. I find myself thinking of it often, particularly at Dartmouth where the question of random encounters and unfulfilled connections would seem to be non-existent. Dartmouth is, after all, a fairly small institution, and in the course of our four years here, one would think that we invariably cross paths with probably just about every other person on campus.
If that is the case, though, then why is human connection so fragile here? Why is it that most people could probably spend four years here and never connect on any emotional level to someone else? I often say that if you come away from Dartmouth with more than four or five people who you'll actually still be talking to in the year 2000, than you are probably profoundly lucky.
I'm not of the school of thought that criticizes the D-plan or the housing system for this situation. We have only ourselves to blame. One of the mostly widely recognized phenomena at this school is the averted glances that occur when two people who know each other -- perhaps through mutual friends, a class they took together a few years ago or maybe even the freshman trips -- invariably look away from one another and refuse to acknowledge their acquaintance as they pass each other somewhere on campus. If we are all seeking out connection, trying to establish and build life-long relationships, it would seem foolish to ignore people that could potentially become great friends.
Instead, just about everyone settles to be best friends with his fraternity brother or her sorority sister or freshman year roommate, and disregards the fact that, in any other time or place, that might very well be a person you wouldn't even have considered spending time with. I used to think it was fear or perhaps laziness that prevented us from seeking out others and pursuing those who we might have things in common with.
Krysztof Kieslowski has taught me otherwise. Like the characters in all of his films, we are all too vain, too self-absorbed, too busy to look around and see that maybe there are a great many people worthy of our attention -- that in our little world, there are dozens of others just like us. These are qualities just as common in the human condition as in the Dartmouth condition, but at a place like this -- with so few people who are so very similar -- it would be nice to think that we could be a little different than the real world.
At the end of "Red," a ferry crashes and all the stars of the "Three Colors Trilogy" ("Blue" and "White" being the other two films) find themselves on screen again. This final sequence is the moment when everyone is brought together, when connection is both necessary and unavoidable.
It's a strikingly touching moment but it is also a sort of grand joke, a brutally cynical statement that says, "It sure does take a lot to bring some people together." Could it be that Dartmouth needs something of the same -- a big tragedy of its own? Perhaps if the snow sculpture had toppled over and buried a couple of dozen undergraduates, we would have been brought together in the aftermath and found our soul mates. As long as no one as attractive as Juliette Binoche or Irene Jacob or Jean-Pierre Lorit was a victim, it could be the sort of sacrifice that does Dartmouth a lot of good.
