Blind Chance (Przypadek) explores the interplay of chance and coincidence in the fate of Witek Długosz, a medical student on special leave, living in Łódź, Poland during the politically turbulent late 1970s. We are shown how chance plays a leading role in the changing of destinies for better or worse, in both subtle and dramatic ways. We also see that the same moral choices confront each of us in our lives, albeit in different forms. The film is structured in three parts, each representing a different outcome of a single chance event.
Witek is a young man in search of a direction in life who wants to do good. As the film opens we see him seated on a plane. His eyes suddenly widen in horror and he screams "No!". A bloodied body is dragged across a hospital floor. We are then shown fragmented glimpses of Witek's life as a child, as an adolescent, and as an adult attending medical school. Losing his vocation and following the death of his father, he seeks to define himself through commitment to a cause and decides to go to Warszawa. At the beginning of each of the following three scenarios, Witek is running to catch a train...
Witek almost collides with a man who is drinking a glass of beer. He runs after the train and is just able to grab the handrail of the train's last coach, pulling himself aboard. On the train he meets and befriends a middle-aged Communist veteran named Werner whose political ideals inspire Witek to join the Communist Party in the hope that it will enable him to improve his society. By chance Witek meets up with his first love, Czuszka, who is angered and disappointed by his decision to join the Party which she distrusts. Now a Communist Party member as well as an atheist and idealist, Witek is sent to end a protest by the inmates of a drug rehabilitation centre where the doctors have been replaced by heavy-handed and unsympathetic Party staff. But Witek has little idea of the extent to which the morally corrupt system will affect not only his freedom but of those he loves. When he is questioned about Czuszka's role in the underground activity Witek senses no danger. When Czuszka is suddenly arrested, he realises with a shock that he has been unwittingly turned into an informer, a development that destroys his relationship with her. As he waits to board a plane for a conference in Paris with a group of Party members, they are told at the last moment that they will have to remain in the country to deal with a series of strikes that have broken out.
Witek crashes into a man who is drinking a glass of beer. They collide with such force that he knocks the glass from the man's hand and it smashes on the floor. Witek doesn't stop to apologise, but he misses his train when his path is blocked by a station guard. In the ensuing scuffle, Witek is arrested and subsequently sentenced to thirty days' jail and community service. There he meets Marek, an Opposition activist and soon Witek joins the Opposition, becoming involved in the printing of dissident publications during the strikes and rise of the trade union movement in Poland. Deeply impressed by a woman dissident's tranquil faith in God, Witek decides to be baptised and becomes a Catholic. As the romantic idealist, he yearns to improve his society by adopting the religious and political beliefs of those whose courage and conviction he admires. Witek applies for a passport to travel to France to attend a gathering of Catholic youth in Paris, but his request is refused because of his anti-Communist activities. The authorities however offer to give him a passport if he informs on the underground's contacts in Paris but Witek chooses not to go. He meets up with Daniel, a friend from his childhood who is attending his mother's funeral with his married sister Werka. As a result of this chance meeting, an affair develops between Witek and Werka and she visits his home in Łódź. After her return to Warszawa, Witek discovers that the printing shop has been raided in his absence and his colleagues arrested. Marek holds him responsible and suspects him of betrayal. Finding himself betrayed, he can only conjecture that Werka had something to do with it, perhaps unwittingly.
Witek nearly runs into a man who is drinking a glass of beer, just managing to avoid a collision. He tries to catch the departing train but fails. The railway guard appears a few seconds later but now Witek has stopped to catch his breath. He then notices Olga on the platform, a girl from his medical school who has come to see him off. Happily for Witek, in failing to catch his train, he finds fulfilment instead in both his personal and professional life. Witek and Olga fall in love and Witek decides to resume his medical studies. After graduating he practises at the hospital as well as teaching at the medical school. Olga tells him she is three months pregnant and they get married. Witek leads a happy life as a loving husband and father and also shows great compassion in his career as a doctor, but he steers clear of both religion and politics. At the medical school some students are circulating a petition protesting the arrest of fellow students, including the Dean's son, who have been involved in Samizdat and other dissident activities. Not wishing to jeopardise his career and personal happiness Witek refuses to sign the petition, noting that the Dean himself has not signed either. That evening, the Dean asks Witek to give a lecture in Libya, which on account of his son's arrest he is unable to do himself. Witek agrees to give the lecture but postpones his journey in order to celebrate his wife's birthday, exchanging his ticket for a flight to Libya via Paris. As if seized by a premonition, Olga begs her husband not to go on the trip and when they are at the railway station, surprises him with an announcement that they will soon have a daughter. When he arrives at the airport, Witek sees some of the characters who appeared in the previous two scenarios and we realise that Witek, in the other two variations of his life, would also have been on the same flight had chance not intervened in each case. The plane taxies along the runway, Witek gets comfortable in his seat and the plane takes off. A few seconds later the plane explodes.
Kieślowski described the film as "a description of the powers which meddle with our fate, which push us one way or another". Blind Chance is driven by political undercurrents, and on one level it considers, in 1981, three possibilities for Poland's political future as it explores three different outcomes springing from the premise of a student trying to catch a train. But more profoundly, it explores what Kieślowski termed "interior liberty", transcending the immediate, external political situation to consider the individual's choice in possible courses of action or inaction. Kieślowski's interest lay in a deep awareness of, and sensitivity to, that dimension of life which influences human events, yet for which there is no rational explanation. Ultimately, on the flight to Paris, the same fate awaits Witek regardless of the choices he has made or what has happened to him in between.
In the Danish television documentary Krzysztof Kieślowski: I'm So-So... in 1995, Kieślowski observed, "We are a sum of several things, including individual will, fate (but we can change fate a little), and chance, which is not so important. It's the path we choose that is crucial".
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