I’m not sure why Ula keeps returning to Joanna’s house to hear more details of the case, but that’s where she goes next. She runs into Joanna’s father, who apparently is on the other side of this union issue — the movie never really explains what that means, does he work for the government?

It’s impossible for a non-Pole to watch this movie and make any assessment about the things happening in it because the details fly by — apparently by design. I don’t think Kieslowski wants the audience to get too wrapped up in the political story, he’d rather make the case that the personal overwhelms the political.

That was a central theme in 1970s American cinema after the Vietnam War and Watergate. Politics seem to have failed us, so Americans retreated to their personal challenges and sorrows. Joanna asks Ula directly — do you really care about this case, or do you think your own troubles are more important? Ula agrees that she does care much more about what’s going on with her — which again raises the obvious question of why she doesn’t confront her personal issues and take a step back from these legal issues she can’t possibly influence.

The one thing she can do is secretly give the $50 she “earned” from her dating encounter to Joanna. Otherwise, she makes these visits just so she can hear some updates on the plot (the political activist receiving cancer treatments has died) and to give perspective on her own actions — she considers her tryst with “weird body hair American guy” to be cheating on Antek.

Joanna closes the scene by offering to give her a name of someone who will help her forget Antek. But we’ll have to wait for that.

That’s because Joanna next meets with Labrador and his intern at the courthouse for another completely unnecessary scene where he voices his disappointment in the hunger strike. We already knew this and we also knew that Joanna would not say anything to change his mind, so why did we need the scene?

Only because there’s some more plot moving underway — the newspaper Joanna’s father gave her that says something about a new union being formed at her husband’s old employer is then passed to Labrador and he comes up with a new legal strategy and puts a word in with a judge that he wants to talk to him about something.

Yes, Kieslowski is wasting our time. I think maybe his collaborator is to blame for this. Kieslowski hadn’t worked with Kryzsztof Piesiewicz before and maybe he didn’t feel comfortable toning down his legal details at this point.

Soon, the movie will veer into something similar to “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” territory as Ula tries to forget Antek. Personally, I’m looking forward to the day when I can forget this film.