Shorts Bay

Gadajace Glowy (Talking Heads) is a serious documentary film which features people from different age groups, backgrounds and professions. Kieslowski starts his film by asking three simple questions to a boy aged 1 year.

These questions are:

a) Who are you?
b) When were you born?
c) What is important for you?

A common element of all answers involves respect for an individual.

These three questions are asked to many young children, boys, girls, men and women. We get to hear very calculated replies which evoke all kinds of human feelings. It is through these replies that we come to know that Polish people are exhorted to be brave, honest and decent in their daily lives. Master cameraman Jacek Petrycki carefully films these replies which have been formulated in order to state that individual freedom is not enough as people must live in a democratic setup. At the end of the film, one of the most poignant reply comes from a lady who is 100 years old. She states that she would like to live more.

Talking Heads is a documentary film of highest quality about heads which talk. It is not an ordinary, trite talk which one gets to hear. Kieslowski has conceived “Talking Heads” in such a manner that we get to hear frank views about life from simple, ordinary human beings.

Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski / Poland / 1980