TEN STORIES, each an hour long, loosely based on the Ten Commandments forms the foundation of this astonishing series. Originally made for Polish Television in the late 1980s, this brought its director, Krzysztof Kieslowski, to international attention, winning much acclaim at film festivals such as Venice and San Sebastian (most recently, in 2000, it was awarded the Best Foreign Film award by the American National Board of Review). The series was co-written by Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz, a lawyer, who claimed that several ideas for the series came from the real-life experiences of his clients or people he knew. Kieslowski was to go on to direct The Double Life of Veronique and the masterful Three Colours Trilogy in the 1990s before his untimely death in 1996. I recently had a chance to revisit this gem and was reminded of the effect cinema can have on us when at its very best.

To go through each chapter in detail would take up a lot of space, and although each one warrants its own lengthy discussion, I will try to discuss the outstanding feature(s) in my favourite chapters. Each chapter does not strictly conform to one particular Commandment; actually, most chapters could be said to loosely deal with more than one Commandment. If this sounds like a lesson in religion, let me assure you that it is not. These short films are about the moral dilemmas that people face in their day-to-day lives, and how we deal with them. The stories are semi-fictional but not far from reality. Kieslowski invites us to think from the point of view of his characters. Would we do the same if we were in their position? He does not preach, which is why this remains so intelligent and so refreshing fifteen years after its release.

Decalogue 1 tells the story of a father, Krzysztof, a physics professor who has more faith in computers and logic than in God, and his young son Pawel, who is curious about why people die and whether God exists. Krzysztof calculates for Pawel that the ice on the lake nearby is thick enough to support Pawel's weight while he skates. Pawel goes skating and drowns by falling through cracked ice, proving his father's calculation unreliable. While the first Commandment does say, "Thou shalt have no other Gods but me", Kieslowski is not questioning a lack of faith in God (he himself admitted to not following any particular religion, but did believe in "a private God"). He seems to be challenging the notion of following a philosophical group, religious or otherwise, blindly. 1 is also a poignant look at the loss of a child, which is also dealt with in different ways in episodes 2, 5, 7, and 8. This first chapter begins the series on a tragic, deeply ironic note, as if shaking us to wake up to the harsh realities of the world that will be seen in the rest of the series.

Decalogue 2 presents, arguably, the purest example of a moral dilemma in the whole series. Dorota demands to know whether her hospitalised husband will survive his serious illness or not. She explains to the doctor that she is pregnant with another man's child, and she will abort it if her husband survives and keep it if he dies. The doctor denies her any knowledge of her husband's prognosis, saying that he doesn't know. Then the story shifts to the doctor and we find out that his own family was lost in a World War II bombing. Does he tell Dorota that her husband will survive knowing that if he does, she will have to abort the child? The ending is brilliantly conceived by Kieslowski, such that the husband lives, and because of the doctor's answer to Dorota, the baby lives as well. The doctor's loss in the past, not his skills as a doctor, has helped him save two lives (the unborn child and Dorota herself).

Like the other films in the series, there are so many little pleasures to be had in 2, tiny details that somehow made it to the final cut of each hour and contribute so much to the three-dimensionality of the characters. Such as the fact that the doctor walks home everyday, or lives in the same apartment as Dorota, or how Dorota is a chain-smoker and every cigarette further makes obvious her own moral dilemma. Symbolism also plays an important part here (as in the rest of the series and Kieslowski's other works). The concept of fighting to survive is represented by a bee trying to climb out of a bottle in the husband's room, or by the stem of a plant springing back up when Dorota tries to break it. Indeed, it wouldn't be too inaccurate to say that there are more fully developed characters and situations in one chapter of The Decalogue than there are in most Hollywood films.>>

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