A Short Film About Love

This is a foreign film with subtitles so it is a little hard to watch, but definitely worth it as it explores the life of a young man who has problems forming normal relationships and instead becomes a voyeuristic stalker. Things don’t turn out the way he or the viewer expect after he begins to get close to her and even admits to her that he has been watching her. Instead of running from him and rejecting his advances outright, this rather pretty and sensual middle-aged lady begins to “help” him, probably mostly out of pity. His response was not what she expected either; he cuts his wrists and ends up in the hospital. Through their interchanges she learns more about what love is than he does. I think there is more to this film than can be gotten in the first viewing and I would like to see it again sometime.

Tomek is a young man who is living in an apartment with his friend’s mom after his friend leaves. He watches a neighbor, Magnalena, using a small telescope each night and even knows her routine as she readies herself for bed. He figures out who she is and calls her, but does not talk, knowing that will upset her. He enjoys watching get upset with him. But he also gets upset with her when he sees her making love to a boyfriend. He plays a prank. He calls the gas company to come out and fix a leak just as she and her man are having sex so that they are interrupted. Tomek enjoys it when the interruption causes her to cool off and her boyfriend to get mad.

Tomek becomes a milkman so that he can deliver milk to her. She wakes up early and so this job makes his schedule more like hers. On a ruse (he took her empty bottle away and told her she forgot to put it out) he gets her to open her door to him and he sees her in her nightgown. Magnalena has a fight with her boyfriend and in her despair she spills her milk and then cries over her situation. Tomek watches the whole scene and develops feelings for Magna. It just happens that the lady he lives with speaks to