Commandments: tentative

Kieslowski on the mountaintop: ten commandments from the late Polish director - Krzysztof Kieslowski | Notes

It was never a question of photographing simple-minded illustrations of the commandments. Rather, by relating the commandments to contemporary situations, Kieslowski hoped to make them real. In fact, the explicit statement of a commandment is never used as a film's title; the viewer sees only an opening number: Decalogue 1, 2, 3, etc. The films do not pretend to provide answers, but to present questions. "We didn't want to adopt the tone of those who praise or condemn, handing out a reward here for doing good, and a punishment there for doing evil," Kieslowski wrote. "Rather, we wished to say, 'We know no more than you....But maybe it is worth investigating the unknown, if only because the very feeling of not knowing is a painful one.'"

This means that the relationship between the films and the individual commandments is "tentative." The moviegoer is forced to think. For example, instead of illustrating stealing with an action-packed bank robbery, Decalogue 7 deals with a mother who had previously forced her daughter - to whom she had never shown much affection - to sign over legal custody of her little girl (born out of wedlock), and now lavishes all her love on the granddaughter. In the course of the film the daughter runs away with the little girl. Is she "stealing" her own child (who has nightmares that only the grandmother seems able to soothe)? Or has the grandmother stolen the child's affection and trust? At the very least, the rights and wrongs of the situation are interrelated. The Decalogue does not present saints and villains; its characters are imperfect but never totally unsympathetic.