Dekalog Review

What is most beautiful about the Dekalog is its plainness. It does not even assume a pose of artlessness. Not realism, not cinema verité, not a film easily categorised except on the basis of its staggering quality.

Even wonderful, human films like Au Hasard Balthazar and Pather Panchali seem to let their gaze wander, if only a little, from the characters and onto themselves, satisfied and preoccupied with maintaining their style, grooming the auteur's reflection. The humble Dekalog wins out over the more gilded works.

The Dekalog doesn't moralise or pontificate. Kieslowski takes potentially sensationalist material (incest, murder, adultery) and, without artificially exaggerating the drama, brings us closer to the people involved. He gets closer than anyone to keeping what people do and what may define them separate. The justice system cannot fully distinguish. It cannot show properly in its gestures that it hates the sin and still loves the man. As Jacek in Dekalog V says to his lawyer:

"They're all against me"

"Against what you did"

"It's the same thing"

The Dekalog is Old Testament law and ideals seen through the prism of New Testament compassion. The most important commandment within the Dekalog is the newest : "Love one another as I have loved you". The Dekalog glows with that love.

Kieslowski depicts a murderer as vulnerable and fearful without diminishing the horrifying and abhorrent act that he has committed. He makes the struggles of the people involved natural and universal. I was never made to think: "All this tragic spectacle in one block, eh?". The Dekalog could have been set in any one of the identical blocks that surround it, or on anyone's street:

"You know the doctor and the patient you heard about at the university live in this block"

"An interesting house"

"Every house is interesting"

The worst moments of Dekalog are shocking because they remind you that it is a film like any other, when that is precisely what it is not. It is uniquely simple and powerful and moving. The fade to black at the end of each episode that invites contemplation, as a Priest might when intoning "let us pray", left me awestruck with thoughts and feelings, uplifted by sadness shot through with hope.

It made an impact on me like no other. I consider it, for now, the best film I have ever seen.


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A couple of miscellaneous notes:


Little Red Riding Hood (Dekalog VII): Ania (above) dreams of wolves and wakes up crying and screaming almost every night. The wolf is the future, her mother (who is in fact her grandmother disguised as her mother) and her real mother Majka, who takes her off into the lush green woods and far away, splitting the family in two. Dreams feature in almost all of the episodes, always with something of the truth to them.


Milk or milk bottles, I believe, appear in all ten of the episodes. It is, I think, being used as symbolic of nurture and nourishment and, whether it is sitting on a sideboard (VIII), poured (IX, II), frozen (I), gleefully delivered in cartfuls (V) or spilt (V, above) it indicates or reflects a certain emotional or spiritual state. Isn't heaven said to be "overflowing with milk and honey"?

Chance and Control in the Dekalog

Fate and coincidence are hallmarks of Krzysztof Kieslowski's films, from the doppelgangers Veronique and Weronika in La Double Vie De Veronique to the sea disaster in Three Colours Red that brings Valentine and Auguste together. The question of whether there is a hand at play behind the scenes, manipulating people as puppets, is up for debate but the effect of such events on the people themselves is unmistakeable.

The men and women who live in the Warsaw apartment block of the Dekalog are, in some ways, helplessly swept along by the course of their lives. They have control over their choices but not necessarily over the circumstances that create them. Now and again we see them try to assert a modicum of control over their surroundings if only to salve their existential angst. In Dekalog II Dorota pushes a glass off a table to watch it smash on the ground. Her very own inevitability. In Dekalog V Jacek flicks a rock off a bridge down onto a motorway causing a crash. In the same episode the man he goes on to kill honks the horn of his car with the sole aim, bound to be achieved, of frightening a couple of dogs. 

They all need to feel that they are directors as much as actors.

What is interesting is how Jacek's act leaves room for chance. This is because, no matter how powerless they feel, some of the people of the Dekalog face decisions so demanding and intractable that they are compelled to call on chance to act on their behalf. They abdicate part of their responsibility and comfort themselves with something that cannot be argued against - luck, fate or whatever one wishes to call it.

The majority of the Dekalog films feature Game-Playing. Tomek and Magda in V decide whether to go home together by seeing if they can catch the bus as it prepares to leave. In IV the dying flames of two candles decide which of Anka or her father Michal will be able to ask a potentially life-changing question of the other. Majka, the real mother of Ania in VII, initially reframes her 'kidnap' as a game, turning into hide-and-seek from her mother (the child's grandmother). In III Janusz accelerates his car straight at a tram, playing chicken with something that can not change its course, teasing fate with the opportunity to wrest the wheel of control from his hands.

On the surface, yes, it is fun, the frisson of a coin flipping in mid-air, but these characters are fearful too. They want to have the freedom to control their own destiny but they also want to have those decisions made for them. If they have Free Will they want to be able to suspend it, if only for a second. They want God to let them go without letting go of their hand.

Dekalog IX and X - Greed, Mistrust and Acceptance

Dekalog IX ("Thou Shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife") and X ("Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods") show people wanting more and guarding jealously what they already have. Perhaps the word greed is too strong but it is the closest there is, nevertheless, to the mot juste.

A husband in IX is terminally ill and unable to continue a sexual relationship with his wife. She assures him, reassures him, that their marriage is strong enough to survive. But she begins an affair and he begins, rightly, to mistrust her (though not certain of anything). He eavesdrops on her phone calls and spies on her. It torments him and threatens to tear them apart as they regard each other through a glass darkly. They ride the elevator and each is alternately lit with the other in oblivion.

A man dies in X and leaves his extensive and extremely valuable philatelic collection to his sons. Worried that it may be stolen, they turn what was already a Fort Knox into something like a prison, with bars and alarms and a vicious dog. They themselves are caught within that trap, both literal and moral. They fret and sweat over their inheritance and covet the one stamp that will unlock yet more riches by completing an extraordinarily rare set. In order to secure it one of the brothers goes so far as to donate a kidney to a dealer's daughter.


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In the end it turns out that the dealer had hoodwinked them and used the brother's stay in hospital as an opportunity to break into the apartment (guarded by a dog that coincidentally is the same breed as his own!) and make off with the stamps. At first the brothers suspect the other committed the crime and thus greed gives birth to mistrust. When the culprit is unmasked the brothers accept the truth. They gladly accept each other and acknowledge that what they have (a new collection begun the very same day) is enough. They count their blessings. They no longer covet but cherish.


The woman (Hanka) in IX wants everything. She wants the loving husband and she wants the lover, regardless of her husband's apparent complicity and regardless of how such actions may nevertheless have hurtful repercussions. Slowly, realising the pain she is causing, she accepts that what she has is enough. No, it is more than enough.

At first Roman does not know of the resolution his wife has come too. Devastated by his wife's infidelity and embittered by mistrust, he attempts to kill himself, riding his bicycle off an unfinished overpass. Fortunately he survives and the two are reconciled. They do not covet any more what they cannot have because it poisons what they do have.

Roman had struck up a friendship with a patient at the hospital where he works - a young woman. She wanted to be a singer but now, due to a heart problem, she cannot pursue her dream. She has joy in her heart and often gently hums along to the music of her favourite composer Van Den Budenmayer (Zbigniew Preisner). She is hopeful and she is thankful. She says "mother wants me to have everything,but all I want is..."

Dekalog: God in Man

The word was made flesh and God was made man to celebrate the joys and endure the scourges of human life. In summation, to show the way and to empathise. However, God is not only present incarnated in Jesus but is said to be immanent in all of us. That is, God suffers with us and through us.

Within the Dekalog there are gleamings of God within man, experiencing life as Man and alongside Man. In Dekalog VIII (Henceforth I will refer to each episode by their numeral alone) the Professor talks of how her son is "quite simply far away from me". In II the Doctor is asked "Do you understand what it is to have a child?" to which he responds mournfully: "I do". In I, the painful separation of God from his only son is enacted by a wretched Krzysztof on his walkie-talkie: "Pawel...Pawel...it's father...over". When Krzysztof weeps at his son's death and rebels against God (thus acknowledging him for the first time) an icon of the Virgin Mary weeps too with tears of falling wax. Kieslowski echoes God's experience through these characters and brings Creator and created into a cycle of shared living.

In V the man murdered by Jacek bleeds as though punctured by a crown of thorns and in VI Tomek cuts his wrists and wears bandages as if healing wounds made by nails. They live his passion.


Characters routinely project what they see as Godly traits onto others. In I Irena invites Pawel to feel God in her loving embrace. In II Dorota sees God's callous disinterest in the attitude of her Doctor. Consider too the recurring phrase "Don't be afraid" or "Do not be afraid", used liberally in the course of these ten hours (especially in VII to pacify the little girl Ania). The motherly/fatherly comfort is God's in miniature. At the conclusion of IX Hanka, upon hearing Roman's voice (whom she feared dead), exclaims: "You are there. God, you are there". This is not for emphasis alone, an inconsequential blasphemy. She sees his survival as evidence of God's working through and for her husband

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The teacher of VIII explains to Elzbieta how, in the way many take God to work, she tries to help her students "discover themselves" rather than tell them "how to live".

What then can be made of the stranger who appears in all Dekalog episodes? He is, I believe, best thought of as an angel. When, in VI, the stranger is seen with a suitcase in hand, perhaps ready to relocate, he is dressed all in white. He no longer needs to blend in. He is a messenger. He is concerned with the decisions we make (present at moments where significant moral choices are taken) but unable to intervene. The eyes of God, perhaps. Or an intermediary. In I he sits on the far side of the lake that separates the housing estate from the church. Waiting.


Where the Dekalog as a whole may pose questions of moral uncertainty, the Angel poses ones on the role of God himself. In I his eyes tell us that he foresees Pawel's death (implied in the flash-forward). This makes us think. Is it predestined and if so is it predestined by God? Did his fire melt the ice? Is there meaningful freedom after all or is this a punishment to awaken a spirituality through brutal lessons? Kieslowski talks of "the God of the Old Testament" who "leaves us a lot of freedom and responsibility, observes how we use it and then rewards or punishes" with "no appeal or forgiveness". It is possible that God is ready and waiting yet it is also possible that he has pushed the father Krzysztof to him.

The Dekalog makes one think of the relationship between Man and God's teaching. More deeply, it elucidates the relationship between Man and God unmediated by institutionalised doctrine.

Dekalog III - A Dialogue through Light

Dekalog III is based, nominally at least, on the third commandment. This commandment states "Honour the Sabbath Day and keep it Holy"...

With Christmas Eve night as their backdrop, Krzysztof Kieslowski illuminates the lives of those who are without a home, lacking the warmth of familial love. Dekalog III, as all the parts of the Dekalog do, appears to call not for strict adherence to rigid, non-negotiable and potentially contradictory laws, not for acts of faith as much as acts of good faith in the spirit of what God and the Bible teaches. The Sabbath day is kept holy not by prayer and ritualised solemnity alone (we see the protagonists at Mass) but also the practice of compassion.

Ewa is alone on a Night meant for sharing, a night that is defined by family. It is her Saint's day too. She calls on Janusz, a married man with whom she once had an adulterous affair. She is seen looking through the window of his home as he, dressed up as Father Christmas, brings gifts to his children. She talks to him on the phone. She lies. She tells him that her husband, from whom she is in fact long separated, is missing. He, reluctantly but with sympathy, agrees to accompany her.

Gradually they discover the truth behind this night and the truth of what had passed between them many years ago. They accept and rebuild a bond. It is a pact sealed before and through God in the breaking and sharing of a wafer-like disc of bread in Ewa's apartment.


* * *

What passes through the doors and the windows that separated Ewa from others is light.

Reflections on the inside of night-blackened windows appear to place lamps and fairy lights outside on the streets. There are many instances of reflections that offer a pathway in through a spilling out. A welcome and a call. Street lights come in too, reflected on the outside of windows. Blinding light punches through the multitude of doors that are closed in the characters' faces. Barriers that isolate are pierced and dissolved.

In out (above top); Out in (above bottom)

The entire city, on this night, is decorated as if a sprawling concrete Christmas tree. Kieslowski and Cinematographer Piotr Sobocinski's shots distort light. They blur it, magnify it and flare it through their lens. Ewa and Janusz are garlanded by strings of lights, wreathed in orbs of gold, haloes of white and red, as if protected by heavenly souls.

Kieslowski chooses to place stress on the colour Red in particular (image below). He employs it as a means to intensify danger (pursuit and capture by the police), passion (Ewa licking her finger to salve a cut on Janusz's forehead), fraternity. Counterpointing such haemorrhages of colour is the white light in which calm, truthfulness and safety is doused.


Ewa is desperate in her loneliness. She tells Janusz how she was prepared to kill herself, showing him the pill in her coat pocket. Her plan was to get through the night with his help. If she could get to 7:00 AM, to the break of dawn and, significantly, new light, she would be ready to face the world again without fear.
Daylight, even more than artificial light, is the source of benediction in Dekalog III.

Years ago their trysts took place in the evening. By bringing their relationship into daylight they cleanse the pain and sorrow that their 'dark' acts had caused. They overcome the despair together. This is now a friendship, albeit one that can have no future. The symbolic significance of light in their relationship is emphasised by their farewell. Seated in their cars, facing each other, they flash their lights:

Preview

Preview

Perhaps this is a way to say 'I love you' but they do it, chiefly, just to connect. They do it in a way that is unspoken, the way in which they will continue to be a part of each other's lives; not speaking, not seeing, but knowing and feeling. Light is everywhere about them, surrounding them and guiding them. You cannot touch it or talk to it but it is there showing you the way. It is God-like and for Ewa and Janusz on this Sabbath day it is a salvation:

"I am the light of the world; anyone who follows me will not be walking in the dark; they will have the light of life"
John 8:12

Janusz returns to his wife. She knows of the affair and now she hopes and prays it will not resume. He sees her sleeping, her face half in shadow* - the mouth. Waiting for news, she cannot give words of comfort or love but she can receive. She awakes and asks:

"Will you be going out again in the evenings?"

"No...no I won't"


Christmas morning has broken with white light. These men and women had room in the inn. They had a place to stay all along. Now they have found a truer and more lasting place in each other's hearts. A real home.


*The Dekalog is full of incomplete faces, obscured and hidden. It is full of people struggling to connect with others.