Blind Chance

“It’s like Sliding Doors, only political and made by the director of Three Colors.” Mike D’Angelo’s matter-of-fact summation followed by an interesting conclusion: “How one feels about it will largely depend on the degree to which one accepts its thesis, which is that people are infinitely malleable.” I’d add that it also depends on what you think about fate. 

Blind Chance is a Kieślowski unlike the colors, commandments, or Véronique. It’s early days when he was tinkering in the depths, unsure of his footing. Still, the great filmmaker’s fingerprints mark the delicate dance direction and the quiet conversations. We’ve been talking for ages. Less ambiguous and mysterious than what I’ve come to anticipate, but forceful. Forceful because we’re with the lead character Witek all the way, and he’s decisive and brazen once he lands in the lap of a quest. 

Not a treatise on choice v destiny as much as an observation about peak vulnerability; Blind Chance chronicles key moments in a person’s life where they’re most likely to be easily swayed (or derailed, you might say). When they’re not at their strongest, wisest, or best. Thus—as D’Angelo put it—infinitely malleable. Susceptible to suggestion. 

… or maybe it is just a movie about random inevitability. Which begs the eternal unanswerable q: Do potential possibilities matter at all if we were always going to end up here?