A Short Film About Love (1988) (2025)

Popular reviews

• Review by Mariner35 ★★½

  This is a short film about what love is not: women as observed sex object; women catering to solipsistic male sex fantasies; tolerance for stalking and sexual harassment; the assumption that women yearn for any attention no matter how harmful. The film is worth watching for Kieslowski's skillful use of composition, lighting and color but it is a study of dated values that have been challenged by feminist ideology and gender politics.

• Review by ScreeningNotes ★★★★ 12

  "Are you seeing someone?"

  A Short Film About Love is also a short film about looking. Through it, Kieślowski engages in a dialogue between Love and Look in at least three different registers, and the result is a thoughtful and intriguing study of the way we look at the world and how these ways of looking inform our desire. It's no mere coincidence that both the posters for the film here on Letterboxd and over at IMDb feature the idea of someone's eyes being manipulated by love.

  Plot & Character

  First and most obviously, A Short Film About Love is about looking in the sense that it simply depicts the story of a man looking at a woman. The plot follows…

• Review by Muriel 4

  kieślowski asking the real questions: what if rear window was not only creepy but depressing as hell

• Review by russman ★★★★ 5

  A short review about A Short Film About Love:

  Loved it

• Review by amyadamslawyer ½ 5

  Protip: women actually won't be turned on when you tell them you've stalked them for a year.

• Review by 3lectricv ★★

  alexa play creep by radiohead

• Review by Stephanie ★★★ 3

  beautiful shots, gorgeous shots. seems like every anti social boy's wet dream. like a "promiscuous" woman isn't going to fall in love with her stalker just because he's tender, doesn't want to fuck her, and cums in his pants the first time he touches her. it's just not gonna happen bro.

• Review by Jacob ★★★★

  Creepy! But also very tender?

  One of those movies where I became truly invested in the protagonist getting what they wanted, even if they objectively shouldn't have. I loved the shift in point of view, particularly fascinating for a film so focused on voyeurism. The lush cinematography (can't stop thinking about those back-lit shots) really helps to balance out the grossness of the premise, and the injections of humor further aid in making this pleasurable to watch. It may not be healthy, but this certainly is a film about love.

• Review by Peaceful Stoner ★★★★ 18

  Love is such a wondrous feeling and perhaps the most important one in this entire world. Love towards a blood relative can be understood and reasoned but love for an unknown person is magical, inexplicable; something that is truly captivating and probably the first feeling that makes us listen to what our heart says. The blossoming of a tender first love is just like a flower; full of hope, flawless beauty and unadulterated purity, it does not know what lies ahead nor does it want to know. It remains expectant of bearing fruit; never boggles its mind with thoughts of how weak and powerless it actually is against the unforgiving , chancy nature of the world, and always brimming with…

• Review by spap1 ★★★★★ 2

  Kieslowski… you might just be my favourite filmmaker.

  but seriously, after seeing this, he is at least in my top three. it has to be one of the most beautiful studies and explorations of any subject i believe i’ve ever seen. it took hold of my heart and my empathy and twisted it, morphing it into exactly what it wished, turning me into a puppet for this short amount of time, trapped within the whirlwind of love.

  i still have tears in my eyes.

  ….

  voyeurism as a concept and an exploration of it in terms of love. how we all become so entranced with the unknown that we can’t help but want to know more, can’t help but wish…

• Review by Edgar Cochran ✝️ ★★★★ 7

  "Thou shalt not commit adultery."

  There is an impossibility to relate to what doesn't belong to us; everything is an irrational impulse, originated, in this case, by the illusion of having similarities with another lost person, but the impossibility is meant to become evident at some point, and hence Tomek's harmful decision near the conclusion out of shame when his opportunity physically came without being able to handle it. The "opposites attract" law does not exist, but "similar persons attract" is not a law either; the intertwining personality coincidences will sooner or later collide negatively. Here we have two nude souls seeking for something that hasn't been even determined by them, because love is undetermined and therefore nonexistent: she says…

• Review by CinemaVoid 🏴‍☠️ ★★★★

  Find someone who looks at you the same way Tomek looks at Magda every day for a year through a telescope. On second thought maybe not.