The Decalogue (Complete Set)

Dekalog is a a ten-part made-for-TV mini series. show more

Dekalog is a a ten-part made-for-TV mini series. Some people say that most of the episodes deal with moral choices. I find that the episodes deal with life's situations that people find themselves in or that they create for themselves. A reviewer writes, "Although the stories have received a subtitle to associate each of them with a commandment, these were not present in the original vision of the director and were added later by the Venice Film Festival's press office." I find this imposition to be somewhat of a distraction. One reviewer writes, "The ten films are apparently based on the ten commandments, but this relationship is tentative." I find the relationship nonexistent.

You are better off disregarding the subtitles as well as the interpretations of the episodes. The interpretations given for the collection that I have, like the subtitles, are imposed. For example, Dekalog I is subtitled "Thou shall have no other God before you." However, the professor and his son do not worship their computer, a theme much discussed at the time that the episode was made. The man has confidence in his calculations because he is a student/teacher of the discipline. Nature intervenes; thus, the result is beyond human control. It is not a punishment for breaking a commandment, which is implied by the subtitle: it is what happens to some people in life. Dekalog III, subtitled "Honour the Sabbath Day," is another example. It is not about disregarding the Sabbath. It is about a divorced woman trying to insert herself back into her ex-husband's life because of her loneliness: she is a person desperate to cling to the only time in her life when she felt love.

The scenes are presented in a "very muted, monochromatic color," another reviewer writes. It seems that the director's view of life may be the same. We see "Very well done portrayals of people dealing with difficult situations." Overall, the episodes are examples of fine filmmaking, and the project is something that any director/filmmaker would be proud to put his/her name to. Dekalog is well worth viewing, and purchasing, as is examining other people's views of it.

Krzysztof Kieslowski was a Polish filmmaker from Warsaw (1941-1996) that brought great pride to a country that has had to overcome many hardships in order to survive. show more

Krzysztof Kieslowski was a Polish filmmaker from Warsaw (1941-1996) that brought great pride to a country that has had to overcome many hardships in order to survive. This is one of the reasons I love the Polish people. Another is that I grew up with them in my native Chicago, Illinois. They are a resilient, strong, and intelligent people. Above all, they are amongst the most caring and generous souls I have ever met. It is fitting then that they had a brilliant filmmaker who stayed in Poland through thick and thin to document their lives.

I was thinking of how I might describe Krzysztof Kieslowski's`The Decalogue'. My thoughts kept coming back to the American series `Twilight Zone'. We know it is a series of ten episodes. Each one is a loose study of one of the Ten Commandments. We are also aware that each episode has a character that resides in the same group of Warsaw apartment buildings. Yet, none are carried over into subsequent episodes. Finally, it is clear that `The Decalogue' was filmed in 1988. So let us go a bit deeper. It is something Kieslowski would insist upon based on his character studies.

Krzysztof Kieslowski co-wrote each segment of `The Decalogue'. His collaborator was Krzysztof Piesiewicz; a lawyer who Kieslowski felt added a different perspective to compliment his own style. Kieslowski directed every movie. I originally thought that he was consulted on every aspect of the filming, as like a Coppola might be. However, I found out that Kieslowski invited nine different Cinematographers to participate. He gave each one total freedom on their movie. He remarked in an interview that this brought freshness to each episode. He said that he was particularly concerned that the crew not be bored.

The characters in the movies run the gamut from young to old, clever to naive, and intelligent to foolish. However, each has a common thread running through their lives. Each must make a decision that may change their lives. This is reflected in each of Zbigniew Preisner's dramatic and sensitive scores. The movies are intense and there is little in the way of action-based sequences. Some of the episodes may bring sadness, while others tend to make one reflect on the subject matter.

I favored the first and last episodes. In particular, Decalogue X has a nice comedic touch throughout and it is a great way to end the series. Kieslowski certainly emphasizes that point with the last lines uttered in the Decalogue. It is his signature and a fond farewell to a wonderful project. Included below are a few lines of my initial reaction to each of the ten movies.

I

Henryk Baranowski Krzysztof
Maja Komorowska Irena
Wojciech Klata Pawet

A brilliant, inquisitive child takes every opportunity to learn. Every day and each moment that passes bring questions to his fascinated mind. Those around him provide insight and enlightenment, if only to give pause to his incessant thirst. Such is the world of a child. Yet, lessons are learned throughout life, and sometimes, the experience can be as harsh as the coldest winters.

II

Krystyna Janda Dorota
Aleksander Bardini Ordynator
Olgierd Lukaszewicz Andrzej

Desire is an inferno not easily controlled by mere mortals. Add anxiety and deadlines to the mix and one can only hope to handle the flame without being burned. This is precisely what one self-absorbed individual is seeking to accomplish. Standing in the way is a wise and resourceful individual who might be the solution, but also garners her scorn. The results are predictable only in the fact that nothing is certain and God still has the best curveball in the game.

III

Maria Pakulnis Ewa
Daniel Olbrychski Janusz
Joanna Szczepkowska Zona Janusza

Sometimes we believe what we want to believe for selfish reasons. Then again, manipulation is not often successful without a willing victim. Regardless, the outcome is never certain until the hours pass as if acts in a play lit by the moon and staged in the shadows.

IV

Adrianna Biedrzynska Anka
Janusz Gajos Michal

How fully has a life been lived when its meaning can be replaced with a sentence? What we know can sometimes be the furthest thing from the truth, if we convince ourselves it is so. This Decalogue examines the value we place on our relationships. Quite often, the outcome tests the very foundations they are built on. Moreover, to be sure, that is why they are laid in the first place.

V

Miroslaw Baka Jacek
Krzysztof Globisz Piotr
Jan Tesarz Taksowkarz

Choices are the freedom to make your own way. The will to bring harm is perceived as better than what? Is life so boring? Then it must be served a just dose of reality. However, isn't that what you ran away from in the first place? So is it back where you started, or ahead to the unknown. Getting what you desire can taste very harsh. Moreover, it turns out to be anything but free.

VI

Grazyna Szapolowska Magda
Olaf Lubaszenko Tomek
Stefania Iwinska Gospodyni

What you see...is it what you really want to get? On the other hand, as it has been reported "Ask for what you want, you just might get it" Additionally, the `object of our affection' can turn into the `obsession of the object' if one isn't careful. Earle wrote "he may just live long enough to become a man, if he can survive the tempest of youth'.

VII

Anna Polony Ewa
Maja Barelkowska Majka
Wladyslaw Kowalski Stefan
Boguslaw Linda Wojtek

Missed opportunity. We are always in a hurry and run past the open doors. Our instinct for survival is suppressed only by our emotions. They can make miracles happen or lead us into disaster. However, one surety exists: we cannot flee them.

VIII

Maria Koscialkowska Zofia
Teresa Marczewska Elzbieta

What becomes of the past? All we know is that it can be resurrected at a moments notice. That is the power of the mind. Most anything can push memories to the forefront. A glance. A gesture. Perhaps, the past is reawakened in a familiar story. Whatever the case, if it calls at your door, be sure before you invite it in. This time, you can change it.

IX

Ewa Blaszczyk Hanka
Piotr Machalica Roman

Sometimes, we have to go to the edge to see what is really in front of us. Had we been looking, we could have seen it coming from behind. The difference is measured in the miles logged running to avoid truth, at all costs.

X

Jerzy Stuhr Jerzy
Zbigniew Zamachowski Artur

Two brothers, two distinct lives. Ah, if one is conservative, the other must be liberal. If one is rich, the other is poor. How deep does it go? Moreover, what might it take to make them alike? Nothing you say? Oh but it is so simple and has been around forever...

Krzysztof Kieslowski was a filmmaker from Poland who made his name in the 1980's. show more

Krzysztof Kieslowski was a filmmaker from Poland who made his name in the 1980's. I first encountered his work in Blue which was not well received in the United States and was regarded as rather cutesy and sentimental. I saw it and loved it however. In fact I couldn't get it out of my mind. Later, White and Red came out and each time the film received a better review and the filmmaker was given a second look at by American critics. I saw much of The Decalogue when it was shown at the Dryden Theatre at the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY. The theatre is a museum and a movie theatre for older or art films. The curator at the time was European and knew many European films and filmmakers. The Decalogue was not shown widely in the US because it was a television production in 10 episodes. Even trying to see it in a theatre 2 at a time meant a dedication for a week I couldn't fulfill. I was happy to get this DVD for Christmas and relive the episodes that I had seen before and see the ones I missed. My favorite? Probably the last episode, which contains considerable comedy and humor after many dark episodes. Two brothers inherit from their father a valuable stamp collection of Nazi stamps circa 1933. The urge to apprise their value turns them not only into greedy hostile men but they become surrounded by greedy, hostile men who have the goal of stealing the collection from them It is a great episode emphasizing the fact that having what you thought you wanted can ruin your life. The other episodes are just as good and intriguing. A young man wanders through a seemingly calm quiet summer day and ruthlessly murders a taxi driver without sound reason. Kieslowski doesn't let him off the hook as the man takes a long time to actually die and the young man has several chances to stop. On the other hand, the death penalty the man suffers is quick and clean. But is it moral and right? Other episodes address morality and belief in other ways. The episodes are thought provoking and never let the viewer off the hook in easy ways. I found the extras on the DVD well worth watching also. Kieslowski was a director during the time of martial law and the end of communism. In Poland, he had to be very careful about what the government saw in his films. In a TV interviewing show called 100 Questions, Kieslowski must take questions from a TV audience who seem primed to ferret out if there is any criticism of the government in his films. Other directors fled to other countries, Kieslowski either couldn't or wouldn't go. He artfully has to tell his audience that the only reason he was a director is that he was sent to film school for it, has no political criticisms in his films, and only wants to tell personal truths. It is not an easy time and good insight into a communist regime albeit a mild one at this time. I highly recommend this set and urge fans of foreign film to purchase it.

Art that can claim greatness deals with complex issues in complex ways. show more

Art that can claim greatness deals with complex issues in complex ways. If the answers or questions posed were simple they could be framed in a single sentence, or a ten second film, then the art would not be its own best explanation. This thought stuck with me as I watched Krzystof Kielowski's complex and fascinating, if flawed, The Decalogue, illuminating aspects of the Ten Commandments from the third, transitional phase of his career, which included this 1988-89 Polish television series, filmed in 1987 and 1988, as well as the two subsequent feature films derived from episodes five and six, A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love. Kielowski's filmic career can be divided into four parts. The first was his career as a documentarian, the second was his early fictive films, and the fourth and final part was his final films- The Double Life Of Veronique and the Three Colors Trilogy (Blue, White, Red). The Decalogue (Dekalog), released on three DVDs by Facets Video, after a decade and a half in the wilderness, is where Kielowski's potential for greatness first had more than a few flickering moments. No, unlike many critics who declare the whole series a masterpiece, I'll say it's certainly it's not. It has a few excellent to great episodes, a few good solid ones, and some mediocre ones, but without this proving ground, his later masterpieces would not have been possible.
The series is not a simplistic set of parables nor morality plays, but short stories, snapshots of Poland two decades ago. Yet, so many critics, then and now, got and get so much about the series wrong. Regarding episode two, Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert writes, `The film is about their separate moral challenges, and not about the two of them locked together by one problem.' This is absolutely wrong. The doctor has no moral challenge; he violates his ethical responsibility. The reason he does so is interesting, but his is not the problem the film is about. That Ebert conflates the two says something about his own beliefs, but nothing of the film. He then writes, of episode nine, `She did the wrong thing (adultery) and the right one (ending it); his spying was a violation of her trust- and then there is an outcome where pure chance almost leads to a death, which was avoidable if either had been more honest.' Well, no. There is no chance- pure or not, in the lover's pursuit of the wife nor in the husband's decision to suicide, and Ebert wholly misses the importance of the husband's impotence and the male ego. In the Christian Science Monitor, critic David Sterritt claimed the cinematography was `expressive,' even though it is the antithesis of that, as it is very static. Perhaps he confused these films with the Three Colors Trilogy? Of course, just as literary critics can be subject to off the rack blurbery, so can film critics, many of whom were as dense as Ebert and Sterritt.
But, it's not just American critics who miss out on the film's import. A Polish-Canadian film scholar named Christopher Garbowski, wrote in his book, Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue Series, that the characters share a conscious or half-conscious desire to `transcend the details of their existence.' Again, wrong! Simply desiring a move away from one's lot is not in and of itself `transcendence.' When I read such things I sometimes wonder if a) the critics have even seen or read whatever thing it is they're reviewing, and b) do they even know the definitions of half the words they use? Yet, to be fair, critics are not the only ones who can botch assessments of works of art. The great American filmmaker Stanley Kubrick offered this treacle about The Decalogue: `These films have the very real ability to dramatize their ideas rather than just talking about them....They do this with such dazzling skill, you never see the ideas coming and don't realize until much later how profoundly they have reached your heart.' One of the very reasons this series fails the `masterpiece' litmus test is because there are too many times you can see exactly what is coming. The most obvious times are in episodes one, five, and eight, where the ends are known within the first few minutes, even though determinism is not central to the series as a whole, which refutes the argument that this blatant obviousness was intentional.
The Decalogue is its own best explanation, but what it conveys is not always the best it could be. Such is the lot of all art. But, without its failures and successes, the greatness that Kielowski achieved in his final portion of his career would not have been so sublime. Failure and success can thus be both complex and simple. Discerning the two from the two is called criticism.

Had it not been for a friend who has the time and the intellectual curiosity to seek out films like these, I would still remain blissfully ignorant that The Decalogue even existed. show more

Had it not been for a friend who has the time and the intellectual curiosity to seek out films like these, I would still remain blissfully ignorant that The Decalogue even existed. But thanks to her, I have something new to evangelize to friends and acquaintances.
I am not going to rehash the stories here. Other reviewers have done so, some in great detail. What I will say is that Krzysztof Kieslowski's masterpiece is a fascinating and often spellbinding set that engages the mind and stays with you long after you put it back in the box. The films are spiritual without being overtly religious and the viewer is forced to consider all the vagaries of the human experience. Zbigniew Preisner's penetrating and often melancholy score adds permanence to the impression made on the viewer by these remarkable films.
Though sometimes you may have to think hard about what the connection between a particular commandment and a particular story is, the connection is there even if that connection is tenuous. I like all the films to a certain degree, but if I had to pick a favorite, it would be Decalogue Ten. Title of least favorite would go to Decalogue Three.
As at least one reviewer said, you may find it useful to listen to Roger Ebert's commentary on this set before you begin viewing. I don't usually put much stock in a five-star review if only a couple of reviews of an item have been written. But in this case, with more than sixty reviews written by such a disparate group, near-unanimity actually means something. The Decalogue is one of the most thought-provoking film sequences I have ever seen, and is a set I will watch many times more.