Senza fine

...and not much of a middle, either. Beginning's pretty good, though. Is it just me or is TCM Imports, under Alicia Malone, grimly determined to show every single heavy, stolid, dull, depressing film from Mr. Kieslowski? Just one solid, grey, bleak, enervating shroud until I finally cried "wystarczajaco" right around the time Antec's lovely, grieving widow, for reasons best known to Kieslowski and herself, decides to sleep with a random English dude she picks up in a bar. If I were a cynical sort I'd say that the dour Pole had a commercial side to his foreboding personality as I'm sure the sight of Grazyna Szapolowska's luscious bod did not exactly discourage ticket sales. God knows, you need something to quicken the ol pulse as you watch this bloodless bunch, cigarettes stuck firmly in their mugs, stare into the abyss, weep, occasionally crack a bitter joke and stare some more. For awhile, I was hoping that there would be some courtroom drama since the plot seemed to involve a lawyer trying to free a political prisoner. But at the film's halfway mark nary a judge, jury or executioner were to be found. Unless, of course, you see Kieslowski as the hangman of all that is dramatically compelling. C plus.