Left Field Cinema

Strictly speaking this is a television mini-series of ten one-hour self contained episodes; each based around one of the Ten Commandments. This is not cinema, its television (although two of the episodes are shortened versions of the feature films A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love). However the series has such incontrovertible gravitas that I feel obliged to analyse it. Plus every episode was directed by Kieslowski, and as one of my favourite directors it is next to impossible to ignore what is often considered his greatest work with only The Three Colours Trilogy sitting in wider contention of that notion. Television was the only medium for such an audacious project, Kieslowski himself once stated that he thought that Krzysztof Piesiewicz (his long time writing collaborator) was “crazy” when he suggested filming the Ten Commandments. It is a huge endeavour, by definition you need at least ten episodes (which is a lot by mini-series standards) each episode needed to be around the hour mark, any shorter and the impact would be significantly lessened. You also need to get your hands dirty delving into canonical territory. It’s a brave move to make in a predominantly Catholic Poland. But Kieslowski and Piesiewicz are nothing if not daring and this is perhaps their most ambitions project.

Originally envisioned as a young film maker’s project, the concept being that each episode would be directed by a new and up coming director to help further their careers. Kieslowski once admitted that he rather selfishly became too attached to the project and decided to direct them all himself. Instead he allowed it to be a project for up and coming cinematographers using nine different directors of photography and giving them carte blanch to shoot each episode as they saw fit, with very little interference from him. This differing use of cinematographers is paradoxically at once obvious and opaque, for example episode five has the most daring photography of the series with a bizarre and very distinctive vignette style; but yet it never feels out of place, the entire series has a rather elusive continuity in terms of style which was completely unintended and contradicts it mutable setup. A more concrete sense of continuity is derived from the commonality of each episode, the location for example; the entire series is set around the residence of a rather dreary Polish tower block. This soviet monstrosity is also a character within the film, although the bulk of the action takes place else where, the numerous characters are connected by its dank depressing walls, Doctors, musicians, banks workers, artists, people from all professions and all walks of life live and die here. The episodes are also connected physically by brief overlaps of characters, a doctor and central character from episode two has a brief and incidental appearance in episode four for example, this technique would later be re-employed by Kieslowski and Piesiewicz for The Three Colours Trilogy, where a major character from Blue would then make no more than an extra’s appearance in Red.

The final commonality comes in the form of a young blonde haired man who makes brief appearances in all but two of the episodes and appears during a moment of utmost importance to the protagonist of each episode. Does he represent God? Is he some sort of dark profit? Or just a man who coincidentally forms part of every characters story? When asked about the role of this almost ubiquitous young mans role in all of this Kieslowski and Piesiewicz would often refrain from answering, believing that his part is one for interpretation and the opinions of the viewers shouldn’t be informed by their own.

It all adds to a sense of community, which when built up helps to conjure a sense of universality for the themes of the film, a universality which goes beyond any one nation’s religious proclivities, but more about that later.

This episode of Left Field Cinema will concentrate on the first five episodes of Dekalog, episodes six to ten will be discussed in a later episode. On to the first part of Dekalog which bases it narrative around the commandment Thou shalt have no other gods before me. The story surrounds a university professor played by Henryk Baranowski; he teaches his young son to favour reason and the scientific methodology. He is defiant against the existence of God, but his defiance may not have gone unnoticed when his life is struck by tragedy.

The first episode sets the tone for the rest of the series in some respects, beginning with one of the thematically darkest of all the episodes and one of the clearest relationships between its narrative and its commandment. Kieslowski wanted Dekalog to be based on the Old Testament version of God. Believing that the New Testament was too softly written, Old Testament God was a vengeful force one who meddled with the lives of others, less moving in mysterious ways and more down to business. Here the father is punished for his dismissal of God, and his faith in science and he is shown in no uncertain terms that his actions haven’t gone unnoticed. Or at least that is the religious interpretation, there is no out right statements of fact as one might expect, it is entirely at the behest of the viewers interpretive skills. The tragic incident is connected symbolically to the distinctive spilling of the professors black ink over his work, from this he understands that something terrible happens, and it doesn’t take long for him to seek out this dreadful incident. It is a depressing but beautifully crafted story which makes purchase of Dekalog on DVD more than worth it by itself. From this statement you’d be correct to deduce that I hold Dekalog one in high regard, and for me it is easily one of the best episodes of the series and this status is garnered by not only its distinctive snow covered setting, or the tender performances Kieslowski extracted from both Baranowski and youthful Wojciech Klata.

Moving onto episode two: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Here Kieslowski and Piesiewicz deliver to us a very serious and morally ambiguous question which sets us a viewer in a quandary. A quandary no where near as intense as that given to the central characters. A young woman’s husband is comatose and potentially terminally ill; she has moved on with a new lover and has now fallen pregnant, she wants to keep the baby, but not if her husband has any chance of recovering. She asks her husbands elderly doctor played by Aleksander Bardini whether he will ever recover; if the answer is yes then she will get an abortion. He is reluctant to give her a diagnosis because to do so will mean the difference between life and death for her unborn child and who is he to decide who will live and die? This is an extraordinarily complicated situation, but through tightly composed exposition the dilemma is immediately clear. The connection to the commandment here is a little vague: if the doctor gives her an answer, any answer then he is playing God. It’s far less obvious than episode one, but again there are consequences to the doctors eventual decision. Although it presents a tantalising conflict, there is the unfortunate drawback to this episode that neither of the central characters are particularly likable, and although in a sympathetic situation the young woman is too abrasive with those around her including her confused current boyfriend; for here to ever conjure any meaningful pathos. Bardini does manage to give his character sense of moral desperation, one of the more difficult situations to portray as an actor with out resorting to cliché, but here we see his burden without ever being explicitly informed. This episode’s inspired final shot solidifies the common ground between the doctor and the woman who both live in the same tower, the image moves from her window to his and shows them both alone, together but alone.

Episode three: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. On Christmas Eve, a man played by Daniel Olbrychski has to help an unstable former lover played by Maria Pakulnis during her holiday crisis. Episode three changes gear from the slower pace of episodes one and two, not that its particularly snappy either, it takes its time and sensitively delves into the lonely mind of the former lover and presents us with a former couple who are both still attached to one and other but have moved on from one and other in differing directions. The episodes visual style is more distinctive than the previous episodes, the shots have far more movement which adds to the increased pace. Not only that but this is also more action orientated, the characters are searching for a man who may be in danger, and at one point race in a small car towards a tram load of people in a tense game of chicken which throws rationale to the wind. Episode three takes its relation to its commandment rather differently. The protagonist does leave his family at Christmas and in doing so borders a little too closely to adulterous behaviour at some points. So much so that if you’re not too familiar with the Ten Commandments the natural assumption would be that this represented Thou shalt not commit adultery. The message is a little murky, because in the one sense, the protagonist disrespects the Sabbath through his abandonment but on the other hand he keeps it holly by helping those in need, the fact that those in needs happens to be his ex is neither here nor there. It is this ambiguity which sets three slightly higher than the others through an offering of impossible contradiction, what should he have done? Either way he’s wrong to do so and he’s right to do so.

Episode three as a Christmas Special is also special as it is devoid of sentiment and isn’t insultingly manipulative like so many American television shows when presenting Christmas, not only that but it demonstrates that such emotionally trite methods are simply not necessary when attempting to convey the so-called Christmas Spirit when so many directors and producers are under the misapprehension that not only is it necessary but its essential. Episode four: Honour thy father and thy mother. A young woman played by Adrianna Biedrzynska discovers a letter from her father played by Janusz Gajos. On the envelope the letter is contained within is written the instruction “to be opened in the event of my death” The young woman jumps the gun while her father is away from home and discovers that her father is not actually her father at all. Here Kieslowski and Piesiewicz play with our sensibilities with a rather uncomfortable outcome, from the beginning of the episode it is unclear as to what relation this middle aged man and young woman have. They live in flat together and they sleep separately, but they are also flirtatious playful with one and other, splashing each other with water and chasing each other around the apartment like lovers but also (in a disturbing comparison) like a father would chase a pre-pubesant daughter. The distinctions between how we treat a loved one and a lover are ripe in every day life. Calling your partner “baby” for example, or a younger woman referring to her older lover as a “sugar dady” both of which conjure a cross over between parental and sexual relation. Not a comfortable cross over but one which has been exploited here for maximum effect. Gajos in a single look throws doubt into the kind of relationship he and his daughter have, and although he’s brought her up and they’ve lived together all their lives, they both know that something right. When recounting her first sexual experiences with other boys of her age she states that she felt unfaithful for some reason. Now she realises she felt she was being unfaithful to her father.

Kieslowski here achieves something remarkable and ethically dubious by creating a sympathetic potentially incestuous scenario which has actually has us rooting for a father and daughter to get together. The more the father resists his daughters flirtations the more it appears he’s only holding back because of perception; his rational mind is overriding what his heart demands. Simultaneously if the father does give into the attraction the audiences sympathy for the scenario would vanish and we condemn him as a weak minded pervert. As with episode two Kieslowski and Piesiewicz have managed to effortlessly present us with a situation so morally convoluted that in lesser hands it would seem ridiculous and yet here it seems as natural as anything else.

Onto episode five: Thou shalt not kill. This probably has the most obvious connection to its commandment. A young man played by Miroslaw Baka murders a taxi driver played by Jan Tesarz for no reason. The crime is motiveless, and pointless, brutal and harrowing. At the time of the production it was one of the longest if not the longest murder scene captured on film, it is difficult to watch as the victim refuses to die and struggles on, and the young man increasingly desperate struggles to dispatch his victim. Kieslowski and Piesiewicz don’t leave there connection here though, they extend it some what controversially to the capital punishment administered by the state, and presents a second murder scene which is equally brutal and possibly just as pointless. Without making judgments on the systems in place within Poland at the time they simply present us with a cold report of the legal procedure involved and only the most cold hearted of us can watch happily as so-called “justice is done”. Its unflinching condemnation of the death penalty is an exercise in tendentiousness. It employees no tricks, and presents no bias to do its condemning. Episode five was actually a shortened version of the feature film A Short Film About Killing which expands on the events and lengthens the film to ninety minutes. If the prospect of watching ten hours of Dekalog series doesn’t appeal, I completely recommend watching A Short Film About Killing which on its own represents one of the best films of the 1980’s, so powerful is the films content that the Polish authorities suspended the death penalty for five years after the release of the film, thus proving that cinema can have a profound impact on the world we live in and can change the lives of those who are willing to watch. Kieslowski had to make the two feature films from Dekalog in order for him to secure the funding for the series, he allowed the producers to select one film they wanted to expand, they eventually choose episode six which was expanded into A Short Film About Love, but Kieslowski himself decided to expand episode five; the subject matter meaning a great deal to him.

The films style is also very distinctive, using a vast array of filters to achieve this vignette effect, Slawomir Idziak was the productions Director of Photography, he would later go on to shoot The Double Life of Veronique and Three Colours Blue which were arguably the most beautifully shot of all of Kieslowski’s films. The combination of powerful subject matter, great performances, photography and cunningly economic scripting makes episode five easily the best of the Dekalog series in the opinion of this reviewer.

M.Dawson