Kieslowski out of retirement

AS RETIREMENTS go, it matches those of Nigel Mansell and Michael Jordan for brevity. Just over a year after quitting the movie business, Poland's Krzyzstof Kieslowski, the world's most celebrated art-house film- maker, director of the Decalogue and The Double Life of Veronique, is to make a come-back.

Like an ageing star, Kieslowski, 54, has agreed to one last movie, or a trilogy, inspired by the ideals represented in the French Three Colours series.

Kieslowski first hinted that he might retire in an interview in the Independent on Sunday in October 1993. He said of his future: "I'm looking at it through quite pink glasses. In other words, I don't want to do anything any more.

"I will sit down on a chair and sit." Kieslowski's return will not greatly surprise some sceptics. To them his retirement sprang as much from his own contrariness as from his alleged disillusionment with the film industry.

His come-back at least clears up the mystery of his uncharacteristic attendance at the recent Oscar and BAFTA prize-givings, where his "final" film, Red, went shamefully unrewarded.

After sitting through the tedium of these ceremonies, he probably feels no further research is needed for a film on purgatory. Or maybe the sight of dross, such as Forrest Gump and Four Weddings and A Funeral taking the top awards, convinced him of the need for his own unique brand of cinematic heaven.