(1979)
4
Michael Costello
The breakthrough film of the great Polish director Krzystof Kieslowski, Amator is a dryly ironic meditation on the fascination of filmmaking with a particular power to disrupt and transform the lives of all whom it touches. The film concerns a young Polish factory worker (Jerzy Stuhr), who, after buying an 8 mm camera to record the birth of his child, begins photographing every aspect of his family life until he is eventually offered a job shooting film of his workplace. It's not long before his amateur work is winning prizes and changing his life in unexpected ways. Kieslowski wants not only to satirize the chains on speech and behavior that existed in the then-totalitarian country, but to suggest the personal damage that can arise from a fascination with the power of the lens and explore some of the ethical questions that the filmmaking process raises. As serious as this may sound, this is probably the funniest of the director's films, permeated, as it is, by his dark sense of humor.
awards for Camera Buff on AllMovie
Camera Buff (1979)
Moscow International Film Festival
