A Short Film About Love

Set in a drab Warsaw apartment complex, the film follows Tomek, a shy 19-year-old orphan who works at a post office. His life revolves around spying on his older, promiscuous neighbor, Magda, through a telescope he stole. Tomek knows the intimate details of her life, watching her artistic work, her meals, and her sexual encounters with various men. His obsession is initially one-sided, manifesting in small interferences like fake postal notices and silent phone calls just to hear her voice.

When Tomek finally gathers the courage to confess his activities and his love to Magda, she is initially cynical, dismissing his feelings as mere sexual curiosity. She cruelly attempts to shatter his innocence by demonstrating that "love" is nothing more than physical gratification. This rejection leads to a tragic turn of events that reverses their dynamic: as Tomek retreats into himself following a suicide attempt, Magda finds herself consumed by the very obsession that once plagued him, desperately seeking the connection she previously scorned.

A Short Film About Love explores the fragile boundary between voyeurism and intimacy, challenging the cynical belief that love is merely a biological drive. Kieślowski posits that the act of "looking" can be a form of love in itself—a pure, unselfish acknowledgement of another's existence.

The film argues that true connection requires vulnerability. Tomek's innocent, distant gaze is contrasted with Magda's physical but emotionally hollow relationships. Ultimately, the story reveals that love is not about possession or sexual conquest, but about the shared pain and empathy that arises when two lonely souls finally see each other.

The Ending: Dream vs. Reality
The most debated aspect is the ending. In the final scene, Magda looks through the telescope and sees a vision of herself being comforted by Tomek. Some critics interpret this as a literal reconciliation, a "fairy tale" where they find each other. Others view it as a tragic hallucination or a visual metaphor for Magda's regret—she is seeing what she wish had happened, but in reality, the connection is lost forever. The fact that the "vision" Tomek is healthy and the real Tomek is injured supports the theory that this is Magda's fantasy of redemption.

A Short Film About Love is widely considered a masterpiece of world cinema and a pinnacle of Kieślowski's career. Created during the declining years of the Polish People's Republic, it transcended its grey, communist setting to tell a universal human story. It cemented Kieślowski's reputation in the West as a premier philosophical filmmaker, paving the way for The Double Life of Veronique and the Three Colors trilogy.

Critics praised it for subverting the "male gaze" trope; instead of objectifying the woman, the film interrogates the observer's soul. It has influenced numerous films dealing with voyeurism and urban isolation, often cited alongside Hitchcock's Rear Window as the definitive cinematic exploration of watching and being watched.

The film holds a very high rating among cinephiles (often exceeding 90% on aggregate sites). Audiences are typically moved by the raw emotional vulnerability and the performance of Olaf Lubaszenko. Praise often focuses on the delicate handling of a taboo subject (stalking/voyeurism) without making it creepy, turning it instead into a story of loneliness. Criticism is rare but sometimes targets the pacing or the ambiguity of the ending, with some preferring the harsher, more cynical conclusion of the original Dekalog VI TV episode.