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Good movie but grossly overrated

Brilliant and touching

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Krzystof Kieslowski directed one of the more interesting self-reflexive films in 1979, when he filmed Camera Buff (Amator- literally Amateur), his second feature film, which runs an hour and fifty-two minutes. It is the one which made him a known commodity in the filmic world. While not a great film, it is a bit more successful a film than other fare from that era, such as his own Blind Chance, from 1981, and this film was a co-winner of the Grand Prize at the 1979 Moscow Film Festival, although that dubious festival's selections have long been known to be laughably bad, at their worst. As with many films made in countries with repressive countries, Camera Buff can get a bit didactic at times, but when it's not preaching it's a pretty good look at the art of film-making and the responsibility of an artist to himself and his art.The tale is not a particularly fresh one, as it follows the life of a none too bright factory worker named Filip Mosz (Jerzy Stuhr, who later appears in White), a typically mousey Polish man who loves to drink, who is contented with his life as a husband and father of a newborn baby girl Irenka. However, when he decides to buy an 8 mm Russian camera, that costs two months of his salary, to record his daughter's childhood, his life quickly unravels. His wife Irka (Malgorzata Zabkowska) does not support his hobby, and selfishly wishes him ill. Eventually, she will leave him and take their child, even as she is pregnant with a second child. Hers is a character that is typical of the non-artistic mindset, as are the managers at the local factory he works for, as a nationwide buyer, who decide to underwrite his 'hobby' so he can film company propaganda about their Twenty-Fifth Anniversary. That and his subsequent films are rather dull treatises on banal aspects of life in a state run system, but somehow they get nominated for film awards at a local festival the company submits them to. In truth, they are particularly unartful films, which only highlights the absurdity of their political potential in a system where total faith is required.Kieslowski has a good deal of fun with both the pomposity of such film festival sponsors, mere apparatchiks who clearly have no idea of what real art is, as well as poking fun at the bad artist types themselves, represented by a fiery character called The Lunatic, who hisses and rages at all such films. Filip's film wins third prize at the festival; really second prize, since all of the films are judged not good enough for a first prize. This is manifest to the viewer, but even the declarer of such dour judgments is shown satirically as a boob, and orates far too pompously about art. Of course, Filip's films attract the interest of a woman named Anna Wlodarczyk (Ewa Pokas), who is a national film board honcho who has slept her way to the top and soon becomes Filip's lover, as well as real-life Polish filmmaker Krzystof Zanussi, who gets Filip's films on local Polish television news, after meeting and arguing of film aesthetics with him in Lodz. Especially successful is a film Filip does on the life of a dwarf at the company. That this man is contented with his dull and deprived life says much of the dehumanizing conditions of Communism, but it also exposes Filip to the increasing censorship of the director of his company. The premise of this trope is that the camera can never be neutral, and all art is political. Of course, this is a fallacy, but one employed as the engine that sets this film in motion, despite its logical weakness and triteness….Camera Buff is a film that gives hints at the greatness Kieslowski had within, but it was still a few years away, and, even though it's a better film than Blind Chance, it's one that is probably best viewed after the later masterpieces, for then even its failures can have some resonances as trial runs for things other films would succeed far better at. Would that more people learned so well from their youthful endeavors.

I found this film enthralling and revealing about a man gradually discovering his purpose in life and the effect it has on those around him as well as the obstacles he now has to face. He must now face the political as he takes a stance on social issues in his life and his town. His naiveté is warming and it demonstrates what a great actor Stuhr is that the film chips away at this slowly as he awakens to the new realities of his life. From a man who had everything at the beginning he has now shattered his domestic life but gained something some would say far richer and more permanent for his soul, a purpose. One that helps him to 'understand what this shitty life is about'. The final shot brings the film full circle as we see a man in the grip of his obsession.

Filip Mosz is a typical polish man. His wife is pregnant, he has a modest job, and all he expects from life is tranquility. That is until he buys a camera to record his newborn daughter, month-by-month evolution. He has the first camera in town, his boss hears about that and asks him to document a business meeting they will be having. This is the beginning for Filip, from this on he begins to get more and more hooked up by films. Mosz is a character that was born to the camera, his naive and curious look give his film an award at the business film festival, and after that he go for his filmmaker side at full throttle. His films begins to get more sophisticated, and he starts knowing people from the business and getting good reviews. Near the end his boss take him for a walk, and they talk about the repercussions of Filips films on the town. At first Filip is mad at his boss, for it was not the first time the he would try to impose him censure for one of his movies. The thing is that for his new movie people Filip cares about will have a bad time. He finds out that what he does as a film-maker has consequences for many people, some good, some bad. And the thing is he can't control the interests, there will always be people who be affected negatively. So this film, has under the first look a discovery and later a dilemma, tat the main character has to attend. HE founds out that you can't be reckless when making movies, you have to be aware of what you may cause. There are things you want everybody to know, but sometimes it is best that this not happen. You can't be impartial, you ca~'t have a neutral camera, for a camera will always be the point of view of someone, not reality itself. So he has this dilemma : if he keep doing this, his acts will have consequences, consequences which he can not tell what will be.The end of the movie is great too, very much like kieslowski. in the end, when he has decided to end with film-making. He turns the camera to himself, no longer being an spectator, but taking part of the action. SHe has been an expectator all along, as we can see with his wife. He goes away and he does nothing really about it. Things happen around him but he don't get very affected, until he switch positions.

It's difficult to write something about this film, only because it is unbelievable; it's so good that it almost couldn't exist. The story is about a man who has a usual life: a wife, an employee... and when he buys a camera to register his daughter's birth he discovers a new world. He changes into a man who lives only for his movies, his objectives and everything else change. The most important thing is to make films. Beyond that he involves himself with the problems of the factory where he works and his films try to show those and because of his involvement he'll have some problems. The film is principally about movies about that people who love movies, special people...