I first watched The Dekalog probably 15-20 years ago, I do not remember exactly. I had heard about it in reverent terms for years and probably watched it on DVD via a mail rental service, maybe Netflix, but more likely Facets. Even though I was a great admirer of Kieslowski’s Three Colors trilogy and “The Double Life of Veronique,” I had not seen any of Kieslowski’s early Polish films. And I came to this series with some trepidation.
Specifically, I was concerned about how religious it was going to be. The series is organized around the Ten Commandments. It wouldn’t be accurate to say loosely arranged either, they are very specifically about the topics of each commandment. And yet, they cover this ground in uniquely Kieslowskian terms.
The most accurate way to describe The Dekalog is that it is both extremely religious and not religious at all. Kieslowski was a Catholic at a time when the Pope was Polish. Catholicism redefined Polish culture in the 1980s even more rapidly than Lech Walesa’s trade unions and the eventual fall of the Berlin Wall. The officially-atheist country transitioned back to faith first before rejecting Marxist ideology in full.
The first Commandment is about having no other God. Now, if Kieslowski had the nerve to make an explicitly political film, he could have made his story about the competition between ideology and faith. But as he almost always does, Kieslowski finds a subject far more interesting and universal. This episode is all about treating science and technology as the primary modern instruments of faith.
The episode opens on a semi-frozen pond. You can see by observing this pond closely that it is not even close to being fully frozen over, that there is running water emptying out of the pond that is noticeably warmer than the rest. We do not know when this shot takes place in relation to the rest of the episode, but it no doubt happens sometime before, but also in the same winter.
The camera opens on the face of an enigmatic homeless man who lives at the edge of the pond. To me, he feels like a character in a Bergman film, a symbol of death (perhaps because he bears some physical resemblance to a young Max von Sydow.) At one point he breaks the fourth wall and stares directly at the camera. Curiously, this segment from before the episodes’ action is intercut with a flash forward, a scene of Irena, the sister to Krzysztof, aunt to Pawel. She is outside of a department store and watching a news program, crying. The scene on the TV shows children running in a school, a scene of pure joy, no sadness to be found in it. The shot goes back to the man sitting by the ice and, just like Irena, he is crying out of his left eye. An empathetic connection between these characters through time and space?
The next shot is our first of the Inflancka Housing Complex, the central location of the series. It’s a distinctive looking communist era housing complex that combines a stark utilitarian look with some elements that make it appear like a cathedral. Kieslowski focuses on some support beams that make one building looking like a cross, then follows some pigeons fly off, as if they were doves sanctifying it.
We next get our first glimpse of Pawel, a boy probably around 10 years old, who is staring at one of the pigeons inquisitively. Pawel is a big eyed child who doesn’t have to say a word to give off a sense of endless curiosity. If this character were at all cloying, he would have sunk the episode, but Kieslowski find just the right tone in his performance.
We next see Pawel with his father Krzysztof down on the floor counting while doing push ups. It’s perfect symbolism, a light father-son competition with the father’s numbers obsession highlighted right off the top. Next, Pawel pleads with his father to come up with a math problem for him to solve, He gives him an equation about Muppets — Kermit the Frog trying to get away from Miss Piggy, gets a head start, but is skating at a slower pace. How long will it take to catch up? Pawel races to his computer to get the answer and is extremely proud of himself for finding it.
I should mention here that in 1988, computers were not at all ubiquitous in American homes, never mind in Polish ones. Eastern blok countries were still subject to heavy export controls on American technology, making computers in Eastern Europe extremely expensive and very rare in households. We later find out that Krzyzstof is an academic, but given their rather spartan living arrangements, it’s unlikely that he earns all that much money — another indicator that he has prioritized the purchase. In fact, there are two computers in the household. I assume that the father passed down his older model (which looks Polish-made), after his father purchased what looks like an IBM PC (the gold standard of that era.)
Pawel seems very happy with this. He next walks outside, into the apartment complex’s snowy courtyard. He catches up to a girl who seems about his age and says hi, although she says nothing in return — but does look back to him as she walks by. We see a church in the distance with a very prominent cross. He crosses a snowy field and reaches the man sitting by the pond. There is a dead dog at his feet, apparently partially frozen over. Pawel reached down to pet the dog and wipe some ice away from him.
In the next scene, father and son will have a discussion about death and faith. But I will leave if for my next essay.
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