In 1980, Kieslowski was just emerging as filmmaker. I met him at a film festival at Bengaluru and I could have interviewed him as a film critic of a New Delhi daily. I ducked the opportunity, as I honestly considered Wajda and Zanussi to be way superior directors in Polish cinema at that point of time. What was missing in "The Calm' that was not so in later works of Kieslowski ("Dekalog," "Three Colors: Blue/White/Red," and "The Double life of Veronique")? The two collaborators who helped Kieslowski soar in those films are absent in this film: co-scriptwriter Piesiewicz and music composer Preisner.
In this film, instead of Preisner, Kieslowski's co-scriptwriter is actor Jerzy Stuhr who plays the lead role in the film. Kieslowski, who officially claimed to be an atheist, begins the movie with prisoners singing Christmas Carols in a prison cell. Nothing wrong here. Anton Grelak (Stuhr) who is supposed to be a "nice" guy caught in a bad political framework, "reforms" in the jail. He is soon fooling his prison mate on the train taking him home and is shown jumping off the train, avoiding his friend's cordial invitation. Grelak gives different versions of his real parents each time he is asked about them. Grelak gestures in a sexist way (to the camera) after meeting his future wife for the first time. His actions towards his lady householder are not honest. Kieslowski wants to present Grelak as a good guy with odds stacked against him, but any astute viewer will not buy that view easily.
The only stylistic element in the film--visions of wild horses--appear three times (anticipating his technique used in Dekalog and Red), once as a malfunctioning TV image and twice later when Grelak recalls those images when he is alone.
