Dekalog (1989), directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski. This is a ten-part television mini-series based loosely on the Ten Commandments. I will comment on it in two parts. Here is Part One. Dekalog: One deals with a father and young son who are both computer geeks. The father, a university professor of computer science, is at best an agnostic. His son, Pawel (Wojciech Klata), is a curious boy who asks his father questions about life and death, questions his learned father finds difficult to answer. But answer he does. The two of them make calculations regarding the safety of the ice on a nearby small lake, and Pawel takes his new skates for a try-out.  Meanwhile Pawel’s aunt is concerned for the boy’s spiritual training. The film presents us with believable people, and plausible situations. It also presents us with serious questions regarding faith, science, and human fallibility. Dekalog: Two turns to questions of love. Here we have a woman, Dorota Geller (Krystyna Janda) with a problem. Her husband is gravely ill with cancer and she carries the chid of another man. Should she have an abortion or not? She seeks the help of the doctor (Aleksander Bardini) who is treating her husband and who happens to live in the same apartment complex as she does. This doctor proves not to have the greatest bedside manner. Anyway, the film keeps us focused on the inner turmoil experienced by both Dorota and the doctor. Both have suffered and are suffering. Both face the dilemma of going on despite life’s difficult turns. The resolution here just may offer a bit of hope in a barren and chilly world – Coleridge’s “cold world.” Dekalog: Three introduces us to Janusz (Daniel Olbsychski) a taxi driver who comes home on Christmas Eve dressed as Santa Claus. He and his family are having a fine night before Christmas when the phone rings. Ewa (Maria Pakulnis), Janusz’s former lover has called to ask for his help in finding her husband who has apparently gone missing. Thus begins a night of searching and discovery. What we discover is that Ewa’s husband is not missing and that she has hopes of reigniting an old flame. The night’s events have something of the sensibility of Scorsese’s After Hours (1985) without the over-the-top surreal feeling or the comedy. Atmosphere is everything in this play with adultery and prevarication. Brightly lit Christmas trees dot the city streets and squares. The highlight is the station person who rolls up on a skateboard. She is amusing. All the actors are subtle. And morning brings resolution. Dekalog: Four focuses on honouring your mother and father, although the honouring here is closer to Sophocles than to the Ten Commandments. A young woman has lived for twenty years with her father, her mother having died just five days after giving birth. Father and daughter are close. He leaves on a business trip and while he is away, the daughter, Anka (Adrianna Biedrzynska), discovers a letter left for her by her mother. Does she read this or not? She tells her father when he returns that she has learned that he is not her father. She also confesses to having affection for him that is deeper than that of a daughter. Here the Oedipal theme finds a twist. The experience of this Dekalog is intense, very intense. And uncomfortable. Most of the action takes place inside the father and daughter’s apartment, giving what we experience a claustrophobic feel. Quite amazing. Dekalog: Five takes us to a dark place, and the look of this one reflects a glumness, a sickly green with a touch of orange letting us know we are in a hellish place. Thou shalt not kill. A young lawyer defends a young man who has murdered a taxi driver, but this young lawyer loses the case and the young man is sentenced to hang. The lawyer is devastated. Punishment, he asserts, is a form of vengeance and we know what the Lord saith. This short film on the evil of killing, no matter who carries out the killing, individual or the state, is expanded in Kieslowski’s A Short Film About Killing. Both the shorter and longer versions are released in 1988, the same year in which Poland abolished the death penalty. This film, Dekalog, appeared on Polish television, and it is quite stunning. Highly recommended. Stay tuned for Part Two. 

Part Two: Dekalog: Six warns about coveting our neighbour’s ass, as it were. Nineteen-year-old Tomek (Olaf Lubaszenko) spies on his neighbour Magda (Grazyna Szapolowska). After fiddling with her mail (he works in the local post office)  and arranging to deliver her morning milk, he finally meets her and admits that he has been watching her with her lovers. Rather than go to the police, Magda encourages the young man, going so far as to bring him into her flat and attempt to seduce him. The experience for Tomek is harrowing and he attempts to commit suicide by slicing his wrists. The film is intense and discomforting. Has Magda acted wisely? What motivates her? Has the young man’s loss of his parents driven him to this neediness? The film may raise such questions, but I am not sure it answers them. Dekalog: Seven asks “Can you steal something that is yours?” Thou shalt not steal, and yet who has stolen the child Ania (Katarzina Powowarczyk)? Ania’s birth mother, Majka (Maja Barelkowska), was 16 when she gave birth to Ania, and Majka’s mother, Ewa (Ana Polony) assumed the role of Ania’s mother. Six years later, Majka wishes to take on the role of mother. Since Ewa is unwilling to relinquish her role as mother, Majka kidnaps Ania. All of this plays out amid talk of wolves and fairy tales and family and lives broken by the events of six years before. Young Ania remains confused. Majka remains outside, expelled from school and from her life as mother. All that is left is departure. Dekalog: Eight concerns bearing false witness. University Professor of ethics, Zofia (Maria Koscialkowska) receives a visit from the American translator of her works, Elzbieta (Teresa Marczewska). Elzbieta attends one of Zofia’s classes where we hear recounted the events of Episode Two. We also hear Elzbieta’s story of a Jewish child turned away from a safe haven during the war. It transpires that Elzbieta is the child and Zofia is the woman who turned her away. Before going back to Zofia’s for dinner, the two stop at the place where the events in the war took place. Here Elzbieta disappears for a short while, effectively abandoning Zofia and allowing her to experience the fear of abandonment. The two women spend the night together and the following morning turning over the ethical knot that was their war time experience. Dekalog: Nine focuses on Romek (Piotr Machalica) and Hanka (Ewa Blaszczyk) who are trying to come to terms with Romek’s impotence. Romek had appeared briefly in Dekalog Six, and now we revisit the difficulties that love can cause. Romek suggests that Hanka take a lover, but when she does, he becomes obsessed with fear of diminution. Mirrors and distance shots suggest people beside themselves, people losing a sense of confidence and importance. The situation leads to near disaster. Dekalog: Ten actually has comedy, perhaps of the darker sort, but comedy nonetheless. It ends in laughter. The narrative, succinct and efficient as always (no need for “five days earlier” or that sort of slippage through time), concerns two brothers whose father has died leaving a fortune in stamps. Their attempts to decide what to do with this collection prove complicated, to say the least. These attempts involve barring windows and doors, getting a guard dog, dealing with a small assortment of people with designs for the collection, and a donated kidney. You will just have to see this for yourself. As a television series, this is daring and thought-provoking.