Sightlines · reception
How A Short Film About Love was received
1988 · Krzysztof Kieślowski · A Short Film About Love on Sightlines
The arc
A festival darling from the start — it took prizes at San Sebastián in 1988 as part of Kieślowski's international breakthrough — but the streaming/Letterboxd era turned it from 'the other Dekalog spin-off' into one of the highest-rated romances on the platform, routinely out-scoring far more famous love stories.
What’s debated
The eternal cinephile debate: do you watch this or Dekalog: Six — the hour-long TV version with the famously different, colder ending — and which one is the 'real' film?
Its footprint
The exchange where Magda demands to know what the boy who spies on her actually wants — and he answers 'Nothing' — is endlessly quoted in reviews, a shorthand for love stripped of every transactional motive.
Where it stands
A 'you must have seen this' pillar of the Kieślowski canon and a fixture of Letterboxd's most-loved lists — the entry point people recommend before sending you off to the full Dekalog.
Did you know? The film only exists because Kieślowski's deal for financing the Dekalog TV series involved expanding two of its ten episodes into theatrical features — this and A Short Film About Killing — and he gave the cinema version of Love an ending different from its television twin.