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Ten modern moral stories that can be said to be inspired by the Ten Commandments, though the text of the commandment never precedes its cinematic illustration--the viewer is invited to discover what caveat Kieslowski's tale contains. All of the stories play out in the same gray, depressing block of Warsaw apartment buildings, and upon occasion, characters--and plot details--from one "commandment" will turn up in another moral lesson; more consistently, and mysteriously, an unidentified youth appears as a sad, silent witness in all but two of the films. Denying any religious intent, the director told critic Annette Insdorf that "I simply wanted to show that life is complicated...nothing more." The "moral" of The Decalogue, according to Kieslowski? "Live carefully, with your eyes open, and try not to cause pain."
Note: all films are subtitled in English.
calendar
program notes and times
DECALOGUE ONE:
Thou shalt have no
other God but me.
Pavel and his father are very close--emotionally and intellectually, as the child's mother is abroad or perhaps even dead. Pavel is taught to put his faith in science, in the infallibility of computers, which can even confirm the safety of the ice on nearby ponds. Before he goes off to ice-skate, Pavel--saddened by a dead dog--questions, "Why do people have to die at all?" Kieslowski's moving drama unfolds with all the force of a metaphysical ghost story as the father, having heard that three children are feared dead on the ponds, begins a frenetic search to find his son. The performances are calibrated to perfection; the result is a film of
shattering insight, laced with black humor and savage irony. (53m)
with
DECALOGUE TWO:
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain.
An aging doctor (Aleksandr Bardini)--just beginning to deal with the wartime deaths of his wife and children--is approached by Dorota (Krystyna Janda), a neighbor
responsible for running over his dog several years earlier. She seeks information about her husband, mortally ill in the hospital, with whom she has been unable to have children; she is now pregnant by another man and plans an abortion if her husband is to live. The doctor is asked to play God--but a miracle intervenes.... (56m)
Friday, July 24:
2 and 6:15pm
Saturday, July 25: 4 pm
DECALOGUE THREE:
Honor the Sabbath Day.
On Christmas Eve, taxi-driver Janusz (Daniel Olbrychski) is coaxed away from his wife and family by Ewa
(Maria Pakulnis), a former mistress who beseeches him to help locate her missing husband. After an eventful evening, Janusz learns that Ewa has used him as part of a superstitious scheme to change her luck around. A film of enormous compassion, this long night's journey into day speaks volumes...about the suffering resulting from exclusion...infidelity and the absence of charity. (55m)
with
DECALOGUE FOUR:
Honor thy father
and mother.
Anka (Adriana Biedrzynska), a 20-year-old theater student, enjoys a spontaneous and uninhibited relationship with her widowed father (Janusz Gajos)--although she finds herself less easy with her boyfriend. By accident, Anka
discovers a letter written by
her mother that changes
everything; and that night she and her father play a dangerous game of Truth or Dare. Kieslowski's film addresses incestuous impulses and their roots, and has all the discomfiting compulsion of watching open-heart surgery. The performances by Biedrzynska and Gajos are astounding. (55m)
Friday, July 24:
4 and 8:30 pm
Saturday, July 25:
6:15 pm
DECALOGUE FIVE:
Thou shalt not kill.
Kieslowski's extraordinary film depicts two acts of slaughter. A pimply country bumpkin inexplicably kills a taxi-driver. The State then kills him. The deaths are horribly similar, shown in graphic detail and in real time. Shot in a calm style of heightened realism, this raw, shattering work was later expanded into the feature-length A Short Film about Killing. (57m)
with
DECALOGUE SIX:
Thou shalt not
commit adultery.
Tomek, a young postal worker (Olaf Lubaszenko), becomes infatuated with Magda (Graszyna Szapolowska), an attractive artist who lives in the opposite apartment block, and spies on her lovemaking with his telescope. When she discovers his Rear Window-ing, Magda tries to demythicize herself--and love--in Tomek's virginal eyes, unintentionally committing an almost fatal error. DECALOGUE SIX was expanded into the feature film A Short Film about Love. (57m)
Saturday, July 25:
8:30 pm
Sunday, July 26: 4 pm
Monday, July 27:
4 and 6:15 pm
DECALOGUE SEVEN:
Thou shalt not steal.
Majka (Maja Barelkowska) abducts her six-year-old daughter Ania (Katarzyna Piwowarczyk), who was raised as her sister's child to silence the scandal of her teenage pregnancy. Taking Ania to the cottage of her surprised former lover Wojtek (Boguslaw Linda), she hopes to start over, but finds she must finally turn to her possessive mother (Anna Polony). An insightful examination of the difficulty of growing up (for all generations), and the true meaning and implications of fathering and mothering. (55m)
with
DECALOGUE EIGHT:
Thou shalt not
bear false witness.
An investigation of the question of choice in a moral hell: A University of Warsaw
ethics professor meets the New York-based translator of her work who has come to audit her classes. During WWII, the translator was a Jewish child offered sanctuary by the ethics scholar and her husband, on the condition she be christened in the Catholic faith. Condition met, sanctuary was then denied as a matter of conscience, and a survivor has returned for an explanation. (55m)
Sunday, July 26:
6:15 pm
Monday, July 27:
8:30 pm
Wednesday, July 29: 6:15 pm
DECALOGUE NINE:
Thou shalt not covet
thy neighbor's wife.
Roman (Piotr Machalica), a promiscuous surgeon, is notified by his own doctor that, for unspecified reasons, he can never have sexual intercourse again. His wife Hanka (Ewa Blasczyk) is distraught
and, with Roman's implicit blessing, eventually initiates an affair with a younger man. Inevitably, jealousy rears its ugly head in this complex, unsettling movie that offers no simplistic solutions, save that of love, the subject of all of the Decalogue stories. (58m)
with
DECALOGUE TEN:
Thou shalt not covet
thy neighbor's goods.
A black comedy on the potentially destructive effect of material wealth: a reclusive stamp enthusiast dies, leaving his priceless collection to his two sons--Artur
(Zbigniew Zamachowski), a
vocalist with the punk band "City Death," and the more conservative Jerzy (Jerzy Stuhr). At first, they plan to
sell the collection, then they become obsessed with it--setting up guard with Rottweilers and security systems, and ultimately bargaining bigtime for the rarest stamp of all. (57m)
Sunday, July 26:
8:30 pm
Wednesday, July 29: 8:30 pm
Thursday, July 30: 9 pm
These notes have been edited from Roxie Theater (San Francisco) program notes and Tim Lucas' How Death Will Judge Us: A Krzysztof Kieslowski Videolog (Video Watchdog #30).
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