User Reviews

An innocent enough decision. Filip (Jerzy Stuhr) buys a camera to film his new daughter. It costs two months salary and it makes him a celebrity of sorts as he is the only one in town that has one.

Now, his boss wants him to film the 25th anniversary celebration of the company. He really gets into filming and soon runs headlong into "rules." Of course, you have rules in a communist country. His wife is not too excited about his new hobby, but he soon gets his film entered into a film festival.

Soon, like all who truly love film, Filip is attending screenings, talking to directors, and reading film magazines to improve his craft. But, more and more his wife is displeased, and his boss is cooling to the idea as he moves from filming the company to social statements.

His desire for tranquility gives way to a desire for fame and art at the cost of his wife and family.

He also discovers the unintended consequences of reporting the truth. In the end he turns the camera on himself as he realizes he had everything in the beginning and lost it all.

A fascinating look at real cinema and finding what you want.

Krzyszof Kieslowksi begun his career as a documentary film-maker. From the start, he seemed to know two things: that in the shabby, feudal bureaucracy that was communist Poland, everything was political; and that the camera is never truly neutral. It was the second concern that saw him shift into telling fictional, constructed stories; while the first, and his own struggles as a young director, inspired the subject of 'Camera Buff', his first feature. As well as its immediate subject, the film is also a fascinating portrayal of an unfashionable subject, namely the class system, alive and well in the supposed socialist utopia (Kieslowski was a great admirer of Ken Loach, so perhaps we should not be too surprised). The film starts as a black comedy in the manner of the tenth part of his later 'Dekalog', and is both very funny and immediately true to life; as it progresses, it becomes more serious but there isn't quite the emotional intensity that marks his greatest works. The score is also less remarkable than those in the films he made with Zbigniew Priesner, his permanent collaborator from the mid 1980s. But his skill at composing images that are simultaneously profoundly ordinary and starkly arresting is very much in evidence, as is the characteristic sense of an all-pervasive greyness in the lives of his characters, punctured only by shafts of colour when his hapless hero comes into contact with the affluent metropolitan elite. In Dennis Potter's 'The Singing Detective', a central theme is the way that the artist will stop at nothing in using their own life as material, and this is also a theme here, growing in importance as the movie progresses. It's an unusual subject for a debut, and can perhaps be seen as Kieslowski laying his cards on the table before he begun the game. Greatness lay just around the corner.

Ah for the love of film…In 2006, I was one internet flight ticket transaction click away from moving to the area of Poland for the duration, but didn't. The "good" reason being is that I suffered some seriously grave trepidation over the fact that I would need to have two months salary in the bank before I'd EVER raise enough capital to buy an 8 mm motion picture camera. And this was in 2006. Sadly, these hypertensive concerns about finances low, all sleepless nights over equipment I don't have, and from where in the heck is the next camera going to come turned out to be relative in the scope of things –in a sick and cyclical sense- and after interfacing with the characters of Kyrstof Kieslowski's incredibly moving Humanist Dark-Dramity, Camera Buff, for an hour and half, I'm just now harboring more than a few serious regrets about not actually abandoning the competitive, spiraling nightmare that is Western Life when I had the chance.

Camera Buff is a wonderful story about a factory worker Filip (Jerzy Stuhr); a man who, in his thirties, begins to see life anew through the view finder of a small gauge movie camera. Originally purchased for "two months salary," which "pissed his wife off" to document his newborn daughter's first few steps, the 8 mm camera is quickly realized as something more useful than just a device for making home-movies. The narrative's tension is organized specifically around the reaction to the films of the institutional power structures and forces around Filip that essentially commissioned, financed, and instigated the films themselves along with Filip's newly discovered and unyielding passion for creating them as he sees fit.

If you view the Kino Video DVD release of this film, perhaps even more profoundly affecting than the feature as an augury of hope for the human race is the sixteen minute black and white documentary entitled Talking Heads in which Kielowski conducts helter-skleter a multitude of fifteen second interviews about "who you are" and "what you want" with Polish citizens, age zero to one-hundred, across all walks of life starting at the year 1979 with a little gurgling baby. In all, it's wonderful material and has me seeking out more Kieslowski.

There are times in our lives that a minor event becomes a biggest event, something that change your life for good or bad, but it's something that makes what you are and defines your whole journey through life. To me this thing was movies. Since I was kid I watched movies but I didn't have a greater perception of what movies were and their meaning, all I know is that I liked for some reason. When I grow older I noticed that is something very important to me and it was something that I couldn't live without, to remember good cinematic moments and to see a different look through our reality, to have different and pleasant experiences.

Since I'm talking about movies and turning points in someone's life, Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Amator" is a brilliant and deep look into the life of a man who accidentally became a filmmaker. Here, Filip Mosz (Jerzy Stuhr) is a happy man that awaits the birth of his first child and he buys a camera to film the event. After that he realizes that he created a magical world through what he filmed, he notices that everything is different, beautiful behind the lens of a camera and starts to make simple documentaries, filming his friends, his neighborhood and everything he finds interesting to film.

But one day someone told to his boss that he has a camera and he needs the camera because the Comunist Party wants to film a celebration of a great event in the town. Since Filip is a State civil servant (working in a factory) he's almost forced to film the event (he's the only person in the whole city to have a 8mm camera). What is interesting here is that Filip enjoyed filming the celebration, doing a great job that caught the attention of his bosses and his friends and that led his film to be registered into a film festival for amateur filmmakers. Filip sudden success makes him moving forward in the making of all sorts of documentaries, one of this documentaries features an midget hard working colleague of Filip in the leading role, something that his bosses doesn't want to be filmed, after all Filip's films are sponsored by the Comunist Party and they don't want to get involved with supposed controversial subjects. Here starts Filip's problems, because now he has a conscience about the power of movies, the influence that his documentaries has in people's lives, in the government, and what it's images may cause to his family and his friends. Is it possible that people can respect and accept what you do even if what you do it's something that pushes away from all the people you love and care? Is Filip a responsible filmmaker or he's just pretending to be someone he's not to get attention? What is best: to be truthful to yourself and lie to others to have good relations or be truthful to everyone and be hated for it? Many questions to be answered by the viewers in this exciting and wonderful film.

Kieslowski knows exactly what's he doing here. This story hands perfectly well to him not only because he's a great artist that deal with many obstacles to make his movies. No, he started filming documentaries,pretty much in what Filip does, filming for the Comunist Party in Poland. In one of the documentaries he accidentally filmed an killing, then his bosses were told and started to control all of his films since then. His first films were censored during the 1970's and beginning of 1980's so in "Amator" we know what he's saying about the control of what filmmakers can do or not. If you are familiar with his first films you can notice that in almost all of it he criticizes the government in one way or another, his attacks are very sharp, very subtle in films like "Bez Konca". With the Trilogy of Colors, "A Short Film About Love" and the "Dekalog" you'll see that he's a more artistic creator. But as in all of his films he's got the partnership of the writer Krzysztof Piesiwicz, a great collaborator.

The acting here is great: Jerzy Sthur in the leading role is awesome. His quietness and strange manners put him in the same type of a Carlitos the Chaplin character, sometimes he's funny, other times he's very impulsive. Malgorzata Zabkowska plays Filip's conflicted wife, a woman that wants the attention of his husband that seems to care more about his movies than to health of his child. In the role of Witek, Filip's best friend and supporter, Tadeusz Bradecki gives a very good performance, showing the limits of what a man can do to a friend and what he won't do. When the movie becomes too slow and sometimes depressive Witek appears to show a little bit of humor.

Another great and reflective work from the fantastic director Kryzsztof Kieslowski, a must see film for those who admires his films, and for those who love movies as I do. 10/10

I found this film enthralling and revealing about a man gradually discovering his purpose in life and the effect it has on those around him as well as the obstacles he now has to face. He must now face the political as he takes a stance on social issues in his life and his town. His naiveté is warming and it demonstrates what a great actor Stuhr is that the film chips away at this slowly as he awakens to the new realities of his life. From a man who had everything at the beginning he has now shattered his domestic life but gained something some would say far richer and more permanent for his soul, a purpose. One that helps him to 'understand what this shitty life is about'. The final shot brings the film full circle as we see a man in the grip of his obsession.

Filip buys an eight-millimeter movie camera when his first child is born. Because it's the first camera in town, he's named official photographer by the local Party boss. His horizons widen when he is sent to regional film festivals with his first works but his focus on movie-making also leads to domestic strife and philosophical dilemmas.

"Camera Buff" explores censorship in Communist Poland and its repression of the individual's expression of his observations. Filip also confronts the consequences of a man who discovers new possibilities and finds his former world, which had been so fulfilling before he'd discovered filmmaking, rendered dull, old, and limited.

The story is interesting solely because of the Communist aspect. If it was just a story of man who becomes obsessed with making movies, it would be just another story about movies told in the form of a movie. But the Communist aspect? If one man in town has a camera, it suddenly becomes a tool for the entire city. It's interesting. This could be beautiful or ugly, depending on who happens to be in power.

Haven't seen every Kieslowski work yet (though as of now it's close), but of what has been seen all ranges between very good (the 8th episode of 'Dekalog') to masterpiece ('Three Colors: Red' and 'Blue' and the whole 'Dekalog' series). To me, he was an immensely gifted director, who died far too early.

An early effort, 'Camera Buff' is not among Kieslowski's best work, but generally it is deserving of more love. Although Kieslowski's directing style is fairly well established, remarkable for so early on, it did become more refined later on as seen with his late 80s-early 90s work. There is a preference for the more intricate-sounding music scores of his later work, this score was the kind that worked well within the film but one doesn't have the desire to hear it on its own repeatedly, and the slightly more emotional resonant and intense work like the best of the 'Dekalog' series, 'The Double Life of Veronique' and 'Three Colors: Red' and 'Blue'.

Despite how that sounds, there's actually not much wrong at all with 'Camera Buff', just that it was done better later. This said, 'Camera Buff' is a great film, regardless of what stage it was made in Kieslowski's career.

'Camera Buff', as was always the case in Kieslowski's work, is very well made. The cinematography is minimalist, but visually striking and atmospheric as well as fascinatingly personal. As well as being beautifully shot with atmospheric use of colour to match the mood, it is gritty yet beautiful with many thoughtful and emotionally powerful images lingering long into the memory. Kieslowski's direction is quietly unobtrusive, intelligently paced and never too heavy.

It's a thought-provoking film in writing, as ever thematically rich and with complex characters, the shift from initial comedy to drama expertly done rather than abrupt and jarring. Kieslowski again proves himself as a master of narrative construction, and the whole film is thoroughly engaging and suitably challenging. The acting is as always from Kieslowski marvellously nuanced and natural.

To conclude, early Kieslowski that while not one of his best is deserving of more love. 9/10 Bethany Cox

A Model of the Man as a Young Artist

One of the best things in the world is to take someone you love deeply and trace them back in their histories, back back before you knew them. Back until you see all the butterflies that nudged each other to produce what you need and feed.

And before the shape was mature. Yes, then you can see the structure, the limbs before they flowered and even surprise yourself a bit.

I'm in love with Kieslowski. Oh he isn't my favorite filmmaker, and not the one I spend time with when I need to learn and grow. But he is someone to have tea with, a friend who has his own way of fluffing air with apparent lovely slight fogs but when you encounter them you find them informed, nourishing, psychotropic. More than lovely. "Heaven," though not all his, is something I wish on every soul and every vehicle he had driven until then carried him there.

This is Kielsowski's first feature. It was before he entered into that odd writing partnership where some external force (Piesiewicz) created some sort of conventional frame on which our artistlover could drape his folds, lace and knives. Before that clever partnership that hid the mechanics.

Here you can see his favored machine, the simple fold: a movie about movie-making and love, and all the related dimensions he knew at the time: intellectual, death, rutting, wistfulness, justice. Passions all. Urges all. At the end, it loops upon itself, the ladder complete to start again at the beginning of the next.

It isn't particularly profound or satisfying by itself. But if you are a lucid mind today, chances are you think about narrative flows and how you and the world use them to wind around and buffet each other. And almost certainly you have had tea with Kieslowski.

If so, you'll find this model of his younger self will tell you something about yourself in an odd, indirectly magical way. If you do, check out the trigger for passion here: Chopin.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

I think there are only two truly great films about film making. One is Fellini's "eight and a half" and the other is this. We witness the transformation of a man from factory worker into artist. All achieved through the use of his camera and more specifically, the things he sees through the camera's lens. Kieslowski is clearly telling a story close to his heart here and shows the audience both the joy and freedom art can bring but also more tellingly, the obsession that can overtake ones life.

The performances are great and the film, in my opinion, is given further impact due to the political undertones that are unavoidable.

Kieslowski even seems to be condoning censorship by pointing out that when it occurs, it forces film makers to find ways around it and produce superior work as a consequence.

Not a perfect film by far but a film that points the way to a career that would continue to rise

Here's another example of critics' comments on the back of a VHS box being very misleading to us unsuspecting buyers. Comments on the video box made this movie sound fascinating, a big visual treat and an interesting story with a suspenseful finish.. Sadly, it was none of those things.

By the way, for English-speaker viewers, this film is called "Camera Buff."

In truth, it was very boring film with unlikeable characters giving you nobody to root for or care about. The man character is a nerd who would rather watch others than do anything with his life.

This won the grand prize at the Moscow Film Festival, which shows you how bad things still were in Russia in the early '90s. I know things have gotten better.

Jerzy Stuhr buys an 8mm film camera to film his newborn daughter. The manager of the plant he works at hears about it, and tells him to shoot a film about the plant's 25th anniversary. Stuhr figures out the basics of editing, but the director suggests changes he doesn't like. Ignoring this, he takes the film to an amateur festival and wins a prize. As his obsession with film grows, his wife, Malgorzata Zabkowska, suffers postpartum depression, exacerbated by the realization that the things he had once wanted -- her, a daughter, a quiet life -- are no longer his goals.

Krzysztof Kieslowski's third feature is a meditation on the power of film and the inability of a finite work of art to accurately reflect the infinite world, or even the myriad complications of a small town. As Stuhr's skills and connections grow, he comes to see everything through an imaginary camera lens, not seeing anything outside his self-imposed frame. Beautifully shot by five cameramen, dialogue by Stuhr, make this a fine journey of self-discovery.

I really liked this film because it dared to be different and it was an excellent study of psychology. This movie was about a Polish man who scraped together his money in order to by an 8mm camera to film his new baby. However, shortly after getting the camera and beginning filming his wife and child, he gets really hooked on making his little films--and seems to film almost everything around him. At first, it's fun, but then it becomes an obsession. In the process, instead of LIVING and EXPERIENCING life with his little family, he is filming them in a very detached way. However, he is so into the filming that he hardly recognizes his wife's growing anger over that ^&@#*^@! camera! Then, when his boss sees him filming and asks him to make a film for the company, his problem grows by leaps and bounds. He seems to see himself as the next great documentary maker and begins to enter competitions and send his films to the television network. To his wife's chagrin, he receives positive reviews and by this point she's lost him--they have no real life together. Where the film goes from there I will leave for you to watch. It is a fascinating psychological study of a man and his obsession--as well as the impact this ultimately has on others around him. An excellent film.

To an ordinary viewer "Amator" is a film about film-making.However I feel that this is only partially true as this film is much more than a film within a film.Amator is a wonderful film about the role cinema plays in human life along with basic emotions like joy, sorrow, suffering, humiliation, friendship, death etc. Much of the film's brilliance comes in the form of incredible acting performance by Jerzy Stuhr.He has given a masterful twist to his character named Filip Mosz. In "Amator",he knows fully well that he is suffering enormously due to the lack of creative freedom but despite this knowledge he resolutely decides to confront all his emotional crisis. There is no artistic freedom for him as his party officials do not allow him to make the films which he truly wants to make. His wife is against his film-making activities too. This takes toll on their domestic bliss too. In a broad perspective "Amator" talks of the difficulties most of the filmmakers Eastern Europe had to face when they were living under communist times.In " Amator", Kieslowski has shown how subtle films like this one can be made which are mildly critical of party. It would be of great interest to viewers conscious of the honest cinema movement called "cinema of the moral concern". For others it would be a good introduction to one of the outstanding films of East European cinema.

One of the most ambitious early works of Kieslowski, AMATOR, or CAMERABUFF is a great work, sadly not too well know by the world. I accidentally stumbled upon this film at my local video store, and noticed that Jerzy Stuhr was on the cover (the lead role). i have always liked Stuhr's acting, so i decided to pick it up. i also noticed that this was a film by K. Kieslowski, giving me even more reason to take this film out. after popping this movie into the VCR, the first thing that caught my eye was the beautiful, yet fore-shadowing, close-up, sun lit shot of the the bird (a recurring camera technique used by Kieslowski). the film was shot in a very minimalistic, and the narrative was very involving. Fascinatingly enough, the film starts out at a "high point", where all the characters seem at peace and ease, and then plunges down to a miserable low. the feeling at the end of the movie is in-describable... i recommend this Krzysztof Kieslowski film anyone really interested in his work. it was a very good early piece.

Camera Buff (Polish: "Amator" ("Amateur")) (1979)

Life-changing hobby, Man who had or has it all? Stuhr's performance shines. As avid photographer, 7 Could relate to passion's cost. 7

Tanka, literally "short poem", is a form of poetry consisting of five lines, unrhymed, with the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable format. #Tanka #PoemReview

Political scientists and historians have been debating for four decades why Poland was the first country in Eastern Europe to begin the process of breaking away from the communist bloc. The first of these causes, quite rightly, is the ascension in 1978 to the papal seat of the Polish cardinal Karol Jozef Wojtila as Pope John Paul II. I think that to this it must be added the existence of an intellectuality and of groups of highly talented and influential artists, whose liberal positions have resulted in critical works of art, reflecting the reality of Poland with its problems. The most famous names were the film directors Andrzej Wajda and Krzysztof Kieslowski. 'Amator' (or 'Camera Buff' as the title was translated into English), made by Kieslowski in 1979, was his second feature film, already a maturity movie, which included a strong personal touch and was emphasizing the signs of the crisis of the Polish communist society entering its last decade of existence.

The best political films are not explicit manifests, and 'Amator' is one of them. It is before anything else a film that talks about the passion for cinema. The hero is a small clerk from a provincial town named Filip Mosz (beautifully interpreted by actor Jerzy Stuhr ) who at the birth of his daughter decides to buy an amateur video camera to immortalize the beginning of life and the evolution of his child. A contest of circumstances causes our hero to be asked to film the visit of dignitaries from the 'center' in the factory where he works, which triggers his passion doubled by a talent he did not know for the filmed image. From here, this fascination will occupy an increasingly important place in his life, until he is completely absorbed into it. But the filmed image also has a power that our hero did not know. Filmed image can reflect the lives of people as they live it, and the reality with all its aspects, some gray or even dark. The filmed truth can become a problem for those behind the cameras. It can become a mirror of the lives of others, but it can also destroy lives. Until one is completely absorbed in this job these dangers are not obvious, but once the threshold is crossed it may be too late.

The cinematographic execution is impeccable. The film also benefits from the presence of two of Kieslowski's generation colleagues, film director Krzysztof Zanussi and television anchor Andrzej Jurga, who play their own roles, integrating the film's imaginary plot into the reality of 1979 Poland. I dare say that 'Amator' is the first masterpiece by Kieslowski, the beginning of an extraordinary and painstakingly short artistic career.

Liked the first half a lot. Director Kryztof Kieslowski takes a good idea...basically, Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Polish Factory Guy...and executes it nicely, with the proper jaunty, comic tone along with more serious undercurrents. And Jerzy Stuhr's performance, with its mixture of bemusement, wonder, trepidation, and excitement over the new world that has opened to him through purchase of a camera to record his daughter's birth, is powerful in its understated simplicity. Not a lot of actors can convincingly portray an Everyman. James Stewart. Tom Hanks. Jean Gabin. Spencer Tracy. Alec Guinness. Well, to that list you can append Stuhr.

Second half is not as good, in my opinion. Kieslowski's tone takes a sharp turn to the dark, gloomy side, not usually a good sign in movies (with a few exceptions, like "Something Wild"). And by film's end the message has gone from one of hope to one of despair as to the ability of art to transform one's life from the mundane to the interesting. It is almost as if Kieslowski is warning young Poles discovering the magic of movies to be careful for what they wish. And, coming from a great Polish film maker, that is kind of dispiriting, in my opinion. B minus.

This Kieslowski drama, made prior to his great fame in the West, is the initially comic story of a man whose unfortunate acquisition of a movie camera makes him an observer, rather than a participant, in his own life. So begins his downward spiral into personal tragedy. Kafka stories are also amusing at the beginning.

The great Polish actor Jerzy Stuhr plays the man.

To me, the emblematic final shot of this film rivals that of Truffaut's "Les quatre cents coups".

Another of Kieslowski's modern parables, but this time I love it. A man is given a movie camera when his daughter is born, and he's quite taken with it. The film is really interesting, good acting and writing; but I was drawn in by the sympathetic energy of the protagonist. He's just so likable. Perhaps I saw a bit of myself in his obsessive behaviour. There's so much humanity in this film. If the others are like this, I can see why he's so well loved.

+6 for a brilliant film about the creative urge +6 bonus points for the scene where he skulls an old-school Pepsi.

10/10, loved it.

Not only does Kieslowski know the depth of passion and compassion, but he also knows about obsession. Here he delves deeply, but subtly, into a man's psyche, whose life turned upside down due to a simple tool: an 8 mm camera. Stunning intro and finale to highlight the film's meta-dramatic nature with some really clever camera work.