Dekalog
Poland,
1988, 57 min
Shown in 1990
CREDITS
- dir
-
Krzysztof Kieslowski
- scr
-
Krzysztof Plesiewicz, Krzysztof Kieslowski
- cam
-
Edward Kiosinski
- editor
-
Ewa Smal
- mus
-
Zbigniew Preisner
- cast
-
Krystyna Janda, Aleksander Baradini, Olgierd Lukaszwicz
- source
-
Poltel Agency
-
COMMENTS
The entire Decalogue was shown in 1990. Krystyna Janda in person.
OTHER
In 1988 Kieslowski unveiled one of the most ambitious works of cinema ever created: a series of ten hour-long films, loosely based on the Ten Commandments, that reframed each commandment for the modern world. No fire and brimstone here, however; each episode eschewed religious arguments for a more difficult, even rarer theme: how humans interact not with God, but with one another. "I simply wanted to show that life is complicated," wrote Kieslowski, "nothing more." Though set in a run-down Warsaw housing block ("it's the most beautiful in Poland," Kieslowski once said, "so you can imagine what the others are like") and inspired by the director's sense of his country's "feeling of hopelessness, of worse yet to come, Decalogue is universal in its impact. Each section was shot by a different cameraman, and boasts a unique tone and approach; as a result, the parts stand on their own. But "in its entirety," Stephen Holden of The New York Times claimed, "the cycle stands as a masterwork of modern cinema, essential viewing for anyone who cares about the movies as a serious art form."
The great actress Krystyna Janda (Man of Iron, SFIFF 1981; Interrogation) stars in Decalogue Two as a young woman who presents her mortally ill husband's doctor with a dilemma that forces him towards violating the commandment "Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of the Lord Thy God in vain."
—Jason Sanders, PFA
FACTOID #85
In 1996, Harvey Keitel was the first recipient of the Peter J. Owens Award, honoring “brilliance, independence and honesty” in acting. Honest he was. During the clip show at his tribute Keitel, unhappy with one of the clips, began waving his arms and shouting until the screen went black. The screen lit up with a new clip and the tribute continued.
