MUBARAK ALI revisited the late Krzysztof Kieslowski's seminal ten-part series of hour-long films, to much amazement.


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 Originally made for Polish Television in the late 1980s, this brought its director, Krzysztof Kieslowski, to international attention, winning much acclaim at film festivals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.

Decalogue 5 is a cold, detached presentation on "Thou shalt not kill", as opposed to the emotional first four chapters (Kieslowski expanded this to its full-length version as A Short Film About Killing). Uncompromising, brutal, disturbing and haunting, this is the most powerful episode of the series. It involves Jacek, a lonely and depressed young man who brutally murders a taxi driver (who lives in the same building as the other characters of The Decalogue) and is defended by a young lawyer, Piotr, who is against the death sentence. Jacek is found guilty and executed. Watching 5 is a very difficult experience because Kieslowski does not hold anything back from the audience. Take the murder scene for example: it lasts for around seven minutes (said to be among the longest murder sequences ever filmed), or Jacek's almost five-minute-long execution scene, which is even more difficult to watch.

Kieslowski presents yet another issue for discussion: Is the execution of the death sentence not murder in itself? Kieslowski seems to be suggesting that it is since he spends a lot of time showing us how the execution is prepared for and how it is carried out, and it is at the very least, as harrowing as the earlier murder. The unflinching final sequences have obviously been a huge influence on later films dealing with similar subjects like Dead Man Walking and Dancer in the Dark. What sets 5 above these films is the surprisingly strong undercurrent of non-manipulative emotions that run through it. Before his execution, Jacek narrates to Piotr how his little sister was accidentally killed a few years earlier by a drunk driver. Is that why he kills a taxi driver? Or is it because of his isolation and his general antisocialism (as we see earlier in the film)? I haven't even discussed the unique way in which 5 has been shot by master cinematographer, Slavomir Idziak (who later goes on to lens Double Life of Veronique and Blue) using dark green filters that create a whole new dark world and further externalise the alienation of Jacek, or how Kieslowski subtly comments on the general unfriendliness and violence that runs in Warsaw (an old woman almost attacks Jacek!). Glass and reflection is present everywhere (common elements in Kieslowski's films) and here "this horrible story reflects the world. And for the reflection to be true, it has to be disgusting", as Kieslowski once stated in an interview.

Decalogue 6 is an engaging psychological love story about Tomek, a shy, young man who is in love with Magda, an older woman who lives in the building opposite his (A Short Film About Love is its expanded version). We notice striking similarities with Hitchcock's Rear Window and later, with Kieslowski's own Three Colours: Red when it is known that Tomek has been spying on Magda through a pair of binoculars for a while now. This obsessive voyeurism eventually leads to him disclosing his love to Magda, who takes him to her flat and dismisses his feelings as being merely lust. Tomek attempts suicide, but only just survives, leading to the ironic final scenes of the episode when the tables are turned and Magda has possibly fallen in love with Tomek, spies on him and tries to make contact with him, all to no avail since he has moved on. 6 is an ironic observation of love and obsession, and Kieslowski deliberately cuts from Tomek to Magda in important scenes and forms an invisible link between them using his voyeuristic camera. Windows and glass are among the several symbols that Kieslowski uses to represent the barriers between Magda and Tomek. Magda's inner guilt at how she treated Tomek is represented by a scene where she spills milk (and since Tomek took up the job of distributing the milk in her building earlier just to see her up-close, spilled milk could also represent Tomek's dying love for Magda). Interestingly, in Decalogue 2, Dorota also let's a glass roll from the table so that it falls and breaks. In 6, Kieslowski uses a colour scheme as well, whereby the repetitive use of a particular colour for a particular character or situation gives it individuality, and he goes on to master this in the Three Colours Trilogy.


WHILE the four chapters discussed above are my personal favourites, the remaining six chapters are nothing short of mesmerising when at their best. 3 involves a woman who lies to a married ex-lover of hers to get him to spend some time with her on Christmas Eve. If they can get through the night with no problems, then she will not kill herself. 4 explores a father/daughter relationship, when one day the girl finds out that the man she's been calling "dad" is not her real father. Does this justify her acting out on a crush on him that she has harboured over the years? The final scene is another of the series' most ironic touches. 7 (which plays brilliantly on "Thou shalt not steal") tells the story of Majka who kidnaps her own daughter Ania from her own mother, who's extremely attached to Ania. 8 is about a Jewish woman, Elzbieta, who comes back to Warsaw after years to question the philosophy professor who refused to give Elzbieta shelter during World War II. 9 is another Hitchcockian tale about a man who gives his wife the freedom to sleep with whoever she wishes after finding out that he is impotent, all to her angry dismissal. Later, he discovers, that she actually has been cheating on him with another man. 10 is the lightest chapter in the series, it contains many laughs, albeit with dark tones. It is about two brothers who inherit a priceless stamp collection from their father, lose one of the finest stamps to a cunning collector who is ready to give back the stamp if he gets one kidney from either of the brothers! After several twists and turns, this takes us to the final scene when both brothers, having initially had no interest in stamp collection, start to develop an interest in it after losing everything they had.

Like the films of his Three Colours Trilogy, these ten chapters can be viewed separately, each on their own, but like the Three Colours, it is more rewarding if they are viewed one after another (with interruptions, of course, as it pays to marinate on these films as they are indeed thought-provoking, and also because ten hours is a very long time to watch a movie!). This way, the viewer sees the connections between each chapter more clearly. Such as how all the characters in the ten episodes live in or next to this one particular high-rise building in Warsaw, and how we see one in another's story. Or such as this homeless man who appears in most chapters, usually at an important time for the main character, and just observes without participating. His importance is not made very clear – he could be an observant angelic figure or he may represent God. I came to associate him with us, the audience, ever watchful of this group of people.

Complex, adult, and important, these mini-masterpieces are a must-see for anyone who loves cinema, or has ever wondered about the issues tackled here, which range from adultery to faith, from murder to pure love. Each part is beautifully shot by a different cinematographer since Kieslowski wanted to give each episode a different look. Zbigniew Preisner, Kieslowski's usual composer, provides haunting music; each suited perfectly to the story, ranging from tender and light tunes (as in 10) to dark, sorrowful rhythms (as in 5). The stories move at an appropriate pace, allowing us to take in every important detail and make connections between character and situation from episode to episode. Importantly, although Kieslowski was a pessimist, he has genuine affection for his characters here and it shows in several episodes, making viewing The Decalogue an almost life-affirming experience. Indeed, short columns like these can only scratch the surface of The Decalogue, and only offer subjective interpretations. This humanist masterpiece of emotion and structure stands as its director's greatest accomplishment, and one of the very great films of the past few decades.