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No End was the last of the many Kristoff Kieslowsky-directed movies that I got from Netflix. I have now watched all that Netflix has to offer of his. Sweet. Like Blind Chance, this movie had me from its start, because it begins with a man talking directly to the audience and telling them that he has died. In the events that follow, we learn that his wife has not taken his death well. She realizes, once he is dead, that she loved him more than she thought he did. She seems to alternate between sensing his presence and missing it as well. Antek, the dead husband, does watch her quite a bit, but at the times where she can't see him, she tries to find other ways to connect with him or fill in the void that he left. Eventually Ulla seeks to free herself from the hold that Antek has on her.

Another part of the movie is the story of a man whom Antek (a lawyer) was defending before he died. This is during a period of Martial Law in Poland, and the man is in jail for organizing a Solidarity strike. Ulla directs the man's wife towards Labrador, an older lawyer who was Antek's mentor, but is uncertain that she has made the right move when a question mark suddenly appears next to the lawyer's name in the directory. The lawyer uses manipulation to work the system in an effort to get the man out of prison, but the man finds more freedom in his own integrity than working the system.

It was a little bit hard for me to follow this movie because I didn't have a good understanding of the historical background, so some of the conversations going on in court or in prison were somewhat challenging, although I got the overall gist.

The movie is cast very well, all with actors who were also featured in Kieslowski's later movies. I recognized "the silent man" from The Decalogue instantly; I think his effectiveness in his later role sort of harmed my viewing of him in this movie because I didn't want to hear him talk. Also, from A Short Film About Love, Grazyna Szapolowska was unrecognizable to me. I didn't even connect her with the movie I had already seen. She is splendid here, particularly in a scene where she has a one night stand with a foreigner and tells him everything she has been feeling in Polish.

I think the elements of the story connected with death are the most effective ones, although the movie is successful overall. With the acting, writing, and music (yet again) combined, it was a movie that grabbed me at the beginning and had me very entranced until its end, and I would say that has everything to do with the Kieslowki-Szapolowska combination.