Decalogue IV (1988)

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski

Screenplay: Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz

Starring: Janusz Gajos and Adrianna Biedrynska

Images from 2003 Facets release of The Decalogue.

Pauline Kael—who I’m apparently apt to quote—said that we shouldn’t view movies in a vacuum. When we see a movie, we should bring all our experiences and everything we’ve seen, read, or heard into the theater. The way we perceive one movie can inform us of how or why another one works so well, just as drawing on our own experiences can. I’ve been kind of slow to write about Decalogue IV, but I think I’m finally ready to do it, in part because of a short story I read by Raymond Carver. The story is “Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?” from the collection Short Cuts.

So what on earth does an American short story with no religious connotations have to do with a Polish television series based on the Ten Commandments? For me, a lot. What fascinates me about Decalogue IV is not its connection to the 4^th Commandment so much as its depiction of a relationship changed by discovery. It’s not preaching or attacking the 4^th Commandment, nor is it bringing it to the forefront. Rather, the Commandment can be considered in the context of the story; it can be considered in the drama and the situation the characters are in. This is one of the series’ greatest strengths; the Commandments are hardly depicted literally and the whole point of the movies isn’t reduced to some contrived fable tied down to them. Decalogue is about the people that populate its narrative, in a way that is not at all dissimilar to Short Cuts.

In “Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?” we see a happily married couple dredge up an incident three years ago where the husband, Ralph, suspected the wife, Marian, of cheating on him at a party one night. While Ralph has always inferred there was an affair, he has never known for sure. The doubt that existed was insular, and effectively buried the incident under a veneer of tranquility. But that peace is more a prison than anything else; a stasis that traps Ralph and Marian in a quiet frustration that is itching to bubble to the surface. Their situation is like a family of a missing person who is suspected to be dead but is never found. This eats at the mind, to the point that you’ll do anything to discover—or reveal—the truth.

In Ralph and Marian’s case, either their lack or harboring of the truth provides the impetus for catharsis; they need some way of releasing their frustrations. The great thing about Carver’s story is that it doesn’t offer some pat conclusion to such a weighty dilemma, because any such solution would invariably feel contrived and simplistic. The story simply marks the crossroads that countless people have found themselves at throughout their lives. Carver suggests such a catharsis can be therapeutic, but doesn’t endorse it as some kind of magic solution. This is all conveyed subtlely, through actions that are realistic, not melodramatic:

“He tensed at her fingers, and then he let go a little. It was easier to let go a little.”

“Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?” carries a strong similarity to Decalogue IV, not only in content—uncovering a secret that has been waiting to be discovered—but in the catharsis a discovery produces. Decalogue IV, too, has a secret that’s been harbored by the father, Michal, from his daughter, Anka. This secret is in the form of a letter Anka’s mother wrote shortly before she died. Michal keeps this letter in an envelope marked “To be opened after my death.” Anka knows of this letter and when Michal goes on a business trip and leaves it behind, she decides to open it.

She finds a secluded spot by a lake and carefully cuts the envelope open with scissors, only to discover another envelope inside marked “To my daughter, Anka.” As she’s about to open it, a man walks near her carrying a canoe over his head. The man causes her to reconsider and it is here that we find the movie at its most poetic and conscious of its religious theme. It is such a classically Kieslowskian moment, to have a complete stranger inadvertently give Anka pause. Who this man is and what he thinks hardly matters, and while it’s possible to see him as some sort of surrogate God judging her, such an interpretation is beside the point.

What matters is the moment provides a break that causes Anka to reevaluate her actions. Whether or not she’s considering the 4^th Commandment, she refrains out of respect and love for her father. As soon as she opens the first envelope, she can tell her father didn’t write the second; how could she if the writing is clearly different? “To my daughter, Anka” must’ve been written by her mother. Like Ralph in “Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?,” Anka can pretty much guess at the letter’s contents. We know that Anka is no idiot anyway—her physical examiner tests both her eyesight and intelligence by spelling “father” in English with the eye chart letters and, not being able to see well, Anka guesses the smallest letters. But rather than simply affirm her suspicions by reading her mother’s letter, she instead forges another in her mother’s hand, using this one to confront Michal.

I don’t think trying to explain why she chose this route is the best use of our time, simply because she becomes a psychiatric case study for us to scrutinize. Our explanation might make sense, just as the psychiatrist’s does at the end of Psycho, but it too will invariably come across as sobering, contrived, and silly. Robert Altman writes of Raymond Carver:

“[…] what he really did was capture the wonderful idiosyncrasies of human behavior, the idiosyncrasies that exist amid the randomness of life’s experiences.”

You could say the same thing of Kieslowski. His movies, so often filled with random or tangential moments, flow with the spontaneity and artistic license we associate more with music than with movies. These moments are almost never rationalized and why should they be? Not only should movies allow the audience to suspend their disbelief, but irrationality is something that informs the human experience. We always seem to try and explain why every single thing happens in movies and criticize the irrational, but maybe we ought to take a look at ourselves first. No doubt we’ve done countless oddball actions that we fail to rationalize. Every little action in a movie, too, needn’t be examined with a fine tooth comb.

What is important and what should be discussed is the cathartic ramifications of Anka and Michal’s actions. For Michal, he’s been harboring this letter for years and years and while he doesn’t know the contents, he can pretty much infer that he’s not Anka’s biological father. Michal is informed by dialogue like “I don’t know.” He’s plagued by uncertainty, and his plans to give Anka the letter failed to pan out; she was either too young or too old. Yet the urge to reveal whatever is in the letter—and be honest with his daughter—finally causes him to leave the letter for her to open. He is a dam, overburdened with secrets and yearning to burst in catharsis.

His passive method of basically baiting Anka with the letter reveals the fear and anxiety he has with confrontation. Anka says: “You want things to happen without being involved.” Indeed, this is true of many of us. Reality is often too frightening to face, so we instead hide behind letters, email, texting, phone calls; sometimes we’ll simply bury ourselves, taking refuge in a book, games, or a movie in hopes that what we’ve done will take care of itself. But we can’t shun reality, and our vacillations and refuges only exacerbate the problem. “Out of sight, out of mind” only makes sense in the moment, and doesn’t provide us with any lasting comfort; it is only a temporary reprieve.

Both Anka and Michal are living a lie by not discussing what they know to be true. Their conversation reveals the change in their relationship; it’s no longer as simple as the father-daughter dyad. The complexity is that Michal sees Anka not just as a daughter but as a woman as well. She sees him not simply as a father but as a man. He does feel jealousy when she sleeps with men and she does feel unfaithful. It’s hard to say whether they’ve always felt that way or whether they are simply reinterpreting their feelings in the context of discovering the truth. For me, it's the latter; our interpretation of feelings isn't concrete and something like jealousy can be transmuted from something more universal like the need to protect. After all, fathers are bound to be protective of their daughters; it’s just the way things are. Michal could simply be considering that paternal instinct in light of discovering he's not Anka's father.

Confrontation is neither destruction nor reparation; it’s a precursor for either one. When Anka discovers Michal doesn’t merely think of her as a daughter, she undresses and offers to sleep with him. It’s such a raw and vulnerable scene, one that she does out of frustration; we almost hold our breath at such a tense moment, knowing that one action could be irreversibly damaging to their relationship. Michal values that too much, however, choosing to paternally cover and embrace her. Such moments are extremely risky, but Kieslowski pulls it off beautifully, in part because he never loses sight of the character’s humanity. The morning after, Anka wakes in panic, unable to find Michal and thinking he’s left for good. He hasn’t, and she sees him walking outside to get milk. Such a simplistic, everyday act tells us that reparations have already begun.

I’ve never regretted seeing a Kieslowski movie. The great thing about him is that, for all the intense emotional situations he creates, he’s never made an excessively bleak or exploitative picture *cough* White Ribbon *cough* Antichrist *cough*. He offers us hope in the face of tribulations that never lose their realistic weight. It’s a tight-wire balance that countless movies have fallen off of and in doing so, they’ve lost their dramatic relevance. The Decalogue is a wholly unique and special work precisely because it doesn’t force feed us an agenda. Rather, its themes are integrated in the realism of the story and the characters, who aren’t even characters so much as real people facing problems like anyone else.

Decalogue III (1988)

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Screenplay: Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz
Starring: Daniel Olbrychski, Maria Pakulnis, and Joanna Szczepowska


Images from 2003 Facets release of The Decalogue.




On Christmas Eve, the air is charged with a sanctified air; the feeling that the day will be perfect and holy, or at least, the feeling that it ought to go that way. It's kind of like church: a special time and place where you stay indoors, spend time with your family, and avoid impure thoughts or actions. But the idea of the Sabbath—whether it be Saturdays, Sundays, Christmas, or Easter—is a human construct subject to human compulsions.

The sanctity of the day (or the place) is only as strong as we're willing to make it. In and of itself, it has no meaning. Decalogue III hardly endorses a strict interpretation of keeping the Sabbath holy. If anything, having Janusz spend Christmas Eve and Morning with his former lover Ewa proves more cathartic and redemptive than sinful. In this sense, it's iconoclastic of the 3rd Commandment.


By iconoclasm, I don't mean the Byzantine kind; Decalogue III's iconoclasm is more progressive than that. The old kind was where religious images were banned because they were an inaccurate representation of Christ; things like paintings or sculptures desecrated Christ's true image because they could only show his human likeness—any depiction of his divinity being impossible in a physical medium. The argument behind Byzantine iconoclasm was that depictions of a physical Christ were forms of pagan idol-worship. That is, the symbol itself was being worshipped and not what it represented or implied.


The problem with Byzantine iconoclasm is that it enforces a dogma that restricts our freedom of interpretation; forcing us into a singular way of understanding and respecting Christ's sacrifice. It grants no latitude for other sects and denies tolerance. This leads to another form of idol worship; the metaphysical image of Christ being such a holy one that it cannot even be represented physically, much less questioned. Any questioning or defiance of the decree is viewed as an act of blasphemy, and there is no leeway in understanding the offender's motivations or situation.


The rule being enforced—that Christ's image is so sacred as to be impossible to depict physically—is not unlike a strict adherence to the Commandments themselves. Such an interpretation—one that denies any good coming from defying the Commandments—forgoes one of Christ's most important teachings: forgiveness. Forgiveness, in my mind, is necessarily preceded by empathy and tolerance. Without these, how can we hope to forgive someone's actions? We may say we forgive them, but for us to mean it, isn't it necessary that we understand their feelings and motivations?


The Commandments can't be treated as the immovable object. We can't say: "uh-oh, you didn't keep the Sabbath holy. Blasphemy!" because it simplifies the human condition; it denies any possibility for exception even though we know the world can't simply be divided into good and evil—it's a big gray area. It is human to err. We must be willing to forgive mistakes and moreover, understand and empathize with them. This is where Decalogue III works so well: in subverting our preconception that Christmas Eve ought to be holy—that any defiance of this is sacrilege.





In the beginning, Janusz feels that no good can come from spending all Christmas Eve with Ewa, his ex-lover. We, too, aren't exactly sure what game Ewa is playing. She tells Janusz that her husband has gone missing and she needs help looking for him—on Christmas Eve of all days. She parks the car herself in the median but says her husband must have abandoned it. Then she calls the hospital to report her husband had been injured on the street, even though she hasn't even seen him. She does these things to string Janusz along; she's throwing a false trail of bread crumbs to keep him with her all night.


Her motives are unclear for us until the end, in part because, like Janusz, she's stringing the audience along as well. She must be lonely though, we at least know that much; her only family is a senile aunt at a retirement home. Her aunt kindly asks her about her homework and Ewa obliges—it's obvious this has become a routine by the way Ewa tries to keep a smile. This is a smile done out of courtesy, not happiness. It's a small comfort when your only family member doesn't even know your age and for Ewa, it's a slippery slope trying to keep face; her inability to maintain a smile is a dead giveaway.





Her motives are almost understandable. Her only contact with family is this rather pitiful scene with her aunt; a few minutes of humoring an old woman who doesn't even know her age. She loves her aunt—that's painstakingly clear—but it's a small consolation. Part of her is thinking: Gee, thanks [God]. I get to wake up my auntie for a few minutes on Christmas Eve only to have her fall asleep again in the middle of our "conversation." We also see Ewa stopped at a red light; she is looking at a father and son playing in the snow. Images like these are not insisted upon, but they hint at a loneliness and stasis, and make Ewa's rather bizarre, attention monger-ish behavior almost justifiable.


Janusz probably doesn't even understand Ewa's loneliness at first. Having seen Ewa eye him earlier at Mass, he knows something is up. Later, he unplugs the doorbell, hoping to avoid any surprise visits from Ewa. But she calls anyway, with Janusz apprehensive about answering the phone. He knows what awaits—or rather, he thinks he does—but goes along anyway because he wants to avoid conflict with his wife. His wife holds a similar restraint; aware that Ewa is probably calling, with the camera training on her, she stops at a distance because she isn't the contentious type.


There's a fear in her eyes; it's as if she too, knows the outcome but is incapable of stopping it. She's probably confronted Janusz before about his affair, but tonight, she can't bring herself to conflict. It could be because it's Christmas Eve and she's too surprised to act, or it might be that she's willing to let tonight's events take their course. It is the latter possibility that I find more enriching and humanist; she trusts her husband to make the right choice. As it turns out, this night will prove beneficial for everyone; providing Janusz and his wife with closure and Ewa with catharsis.


It is only when Ewa reveals her situation that her bizarre actions not only become identifiable, but more importantly, something we can empathize with. The night has been strange—almost like a mini-Eyes Wide Shut—ranging from Ewa manufacturing false clues to her husband's whereabouts, the two going to the morgue and wondering who is rejoicing the death of the man before them, Janusz fighting the sadistic guard, Ewa's suicidal attempts to drive them off the road, and the parking lot attendant skateboarding down the ramp.





It is at that parking lot that Janusz finally learns that Ewa's husband left her three years ago. For her, this has hardly been fair. They both were caught in the affair, but he gets to happily spend Christmas Eve with his wife and kids while she sits alone in her apartment. Her goal is to spend the entire night with Janusz and by the end, make him understand and empathize with her feelings. She says it's kind of like a game; she feels that if she can get through the night with Janusz, she'll be able to move on. While we may raise our eyebrows, is her superstition any stranger than our obsession with holidays or the Sabbath? If this is the way she finds closure, shouldn't we grant her that small allowance? Janusz's breaking of the 3rd Commandment effectively saves a life; Ewa drops her suicide pill, no longer needing it.


Decalogue III subverts the rigidity of the 3rd Commandment, claiming that we can't deal in absolutes. If someone needs us, then what value does the commandment have? It doesn't make sense to ignore the person standing next to you just because it's Christmas Eve. But that isn't to say the Sabbath is bad either; it, like Ewa's superstitious game, helps ground us and even proves cleansing and cathartic. In the end, Janusz and his wife achieve their closure through a simple, knowing exchange:


"Ewa?"
"Ewa."

Decalogue II (1988)

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Screenplay: Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz

Starring:Krystyna Janda and Aleksander Bardini

Images from the 2003 Facets release of The Decalogue.

After seeing things like Juno and 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, it's a relief to see Decalogue II, which is so refreshingly apolitical. Juno and 4 Months bring abortion to the forefront; losing their dramatic integrity in the issue itself and in the case of Juno, the added distraction of making the characters insufferably hyper-hip. Decalogue II is such a raw, naked, and honest piece of filmmaking by comparison. It's not about the scandal of pregnancy from an affair while your husband is on his deathbed; it's about the individuals involved in this drama; their reactions and frustrations with the situation rather than the situation itself. The movie never loses sight of that.

This isn't to say Decalogue II denies of the significance of abortion as a moral issue; it's just beside the point. Sure, there's the Polish Catholic milieu to consider, but our focus in Decalogue II is on the people that populate the story. It is their fears, uncertainties, and frustrations that are so compelling because we identify with their humanity; with their moral and existential quandary. Dorota's choices carry with them such intense ramifications that to act prematurely would be devastating, should her choice be the wrong one. Abort her baby and hope her husband lives? Or keep the baby under the impression her husband will die?

Such a choice might be easier if she knew the outcome. Might be. But she doesn't, and therein lies the frustration: uncertainty. It is human to desire knowledge; to desire control; to be able to make a rational decision. It's funny how easily we can trick ourselves into thinking that everything is answerable; that somewhere out there, there is some expert or wise man who can tell us exactly what to do. For Dorota, this is the doctor. She urgently pursues him; hopeful he'll give her the answer she wants, which would be any answer other than the one he gives: he doesn't know.

Krystyna Janda is good in this role. Her face pale and gaunt, she's a woman worn down by waiting. There's an undercurrent of anger in her face, as if her own stasis has started to freeze over her ability to react. When the doctor tells her he really doesn't know what Andrzej's outcome will be, her face gives the slightest ripple of emotion. Janda's acting is the antithesis of melodrama. Like her performance in Tatarak, she is an actress of subdued expression; willing to play characters who cut close to reality and achieve a naked rawness that's genuine and beautiful.

Indeed, Janda is at once weathered and strikingly beautiful; still showing lingering vestiges of vibrance and youth in her middle-aged years. Her pregnancy is a powerful reminder of her waning years of fertility. Those years are a time bomb; counting down to Dorota's own destruction through inevitable infecundity. Things are changing around her and within her, and she yearns for control; eventually tearing the leaves off her house plant. A reminder of the relentless, plodding pace of time itself, the gesture is a helpless grasp for control; a silent outcry to stop the unstoppable. Classically Kieslowski-an, she bends the naked plant stem but it defiantly opposes her action; slowly raising itself as if to affirm the incessant beating of time.

The paradox is that as unbearable as stasis is, the alternative is a far more frightening prospect to face. Her prison becomes a refuge from the truth and reality of the situation. When she plays tapes of music, it's an attempt to escape from the burdens and consequences of action. Yet, like any escape from reality, it offers only a temporary reprieve. Decisions, death, and conclusions must be faced. Such a statement seems unbearably pessimistic and brooding, but it's not nihilism. Acknowledging chaos and uncertainty does not mean renouncing order, but rejecting an illusion.

As Myrtle Gordon from Opening Night said, what the story needs is: hope. Hope isn't wish-fulfillment. That's an important distinction to make. Wish-fulfillment tells us everything will turn out fine while making us forget harsh realities. Hope is the possibility of good outcomes in the face of trying times. Decalogue II doesn't package a cute, naive, hunky-dory conclusion because life doesn't work that way. The problem with something like Slumdog Millionaire is that it gives reality only a fleeting glance; like the person who claims they're "aware" because they've given the world news a skim. This is wish-fulfillment; a way to appease a person's guilt because they've been ignorant, but to do it in a half-assed, comforting, innocuous, politically correct way.

But at the end of the day, we needn't compare Decalogue II to inferior pictures to appreciate how beautiful a work this 50 minute movie is. Simply, to offer us hope while not diminishing reality is a rare feat. It is something to be cherished and reflected upon; a rumination on our existential woes and our inherent drive for certainty and knowledge. This frustration we have with the unknown is perpetually with us; an unrelenting reminder of our limitations as human beings. It's possible that the wonderful life we're always trying to reach---the one we keep prattling on about and filling our dreams with---will never come. We may never make it to the big time; forever working that deadend 9-5 job, but to shun reality entirely is to forgo even a chance for lasting happiness.

Decalogue I (1988)

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Screenplay: Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz

Starring: Henryk Baranowski, Wojciech Klata, and Maja Komorowska

Images from the 2003 Facets release of The Decalogue.

Think back to when you were at school and you solved a math problem or learned a new concept. Something where the pieces just “clicked,” and you got it. Everything seemed clear, fresh, and new, perhaps because we felt we understood the world and had a better grasp on it. A math equation seems so reassuring and straightforward. It tells us This equals That. It’s precise and definitive, giving us a simple solution to a problem.

Yet our command of math problems can make us confident and proud, to where this hubris can create absolute faith in a system. Our faith gives us a sense of superiority, as if we understand the world better than the non-believers. It feels good to have an answer and not just for math problems, but for life itself. It’s as if we’ve discovered the secret key to the eternal question: What does life mean?

In Decalogue I, Pavel is happy when he solves the math problem. He’s glad he has the answer and also that the problem came from his father, who he sees as a kind of god. The answer he finds is a number, which has a satisfying finality to it. That is the answer. Period. While numbers have closure, they can also be disappointing once we realize how limited they are. What does it matter if Pavel figures out when Ms. Piggy catches Kermit when he’s presented with something inexplicable like a dog’s death? For once, his father fails to provide a satisfying answer.

We all go through that phase when we think our parents have the answer to everything. The world seems safe and understandable, like a cocoon protecting us from reality. So when Pavel’s dad tells him that death is when the heart stops pumping blood, we stop moving, and we cease to exist, that cocoon is shattered. His answer has the finality of a number. Yet Pavel is not satisfied, because his aunt believes with the same conviction that there is an afterlife. The question is not: Who’s right? But rather: How can two people have opposing beliefs, yet absolute faith in them?

The father trusts his system of logic. Like the chess player using a system for the games she plays, he uses his computer to lock doors, turn the faucet on, and predict the weather. It’s a system he has absolute faith in, but one that isn’t perfect. His pride on it costs him his son. Yet how is his faith any different from a religious one?

The father trusts his numbers just as the aunt trusts in God. Ask any religious person: “How do you know God exists?” and the answer will probably be: “Because I have faith.” But what if they’re wrong? How can Christians, Muslims, Jews, Atheists, Buddhists, Hindus and every other belief all have the conviction that they are right? We can’t answer that with a satisfying conclusion, just as Krzysztof can’t give a satisfying answer about death, which leaves us in an existential quandary. Perhaps the problem lies in the question itself. Maybe everyone’s right. Maybe we should simply tolerate and respect a person’s beliefs. To each his own, you know what I mean?

But what if beliefs manifest themselves in the way we live? Which of course they do. Should I respect an occult society that sacrifices children on blood altars and dances with rattlesnakes just because it’s their faith? Or a more relevant question: How do you respect a Catholic’s belief against abortion if you are Pro-Choice? If you bend over for their beliefs, you are renouncing your own. We cooperate as best we can, but we’ll never agree on everything. So what should we do? Proclaim faith in God? Then which god? Islamic, Jewish, or Christian? If Christian, then should we believe in Catholicism, Mormonism, Evangelicalism, or any other denomination? See what I’m doing? I’m looking for a definitive answer, which I’m not sure is possible.

I must confess I’m stuck at the moment, trying to finish this up. I feel the need to conclude, but how? Maybe ruminate on a shot in Decalogue I? How about when we see the father enter the church frustrated and knock over the altar. Candle wax spills on a portrait of Mary, and she appears to cry. Is this an act of God? A sign? Or perhaps it’s coincidence? Or the eyeball-rolling (but nevertheless true) explanation: The filmmaker’s intention. I don’t think “fate” and “coincidence” are mutually exclusive. For me, they are two names for the same phenomenon. But I don’t think the name we give is as important as the phenomenon itself. We notice these things, and isn’t that the important part? They give us a measure of stability and meaning in a world of chaos. That we notice them at all blows my mind more than trying to figure out what caused them.

I guess in the end, we’re left with questions. What we have in us is the desire for answers, which raises more questions like: Why are we so keen on looking for solutions? Maybe it should be enough to simply accept this part of us and use our faiths as something to hold onto, like something that anchors our sanity and gives us hope.