Dekalog (1989)
(series 10 episodes 60 minutes)

Directed by: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Language: Polish

Rating: 6/10 | Yaser Tohidi
January 29, 2020

Ten independent one hour films depicting profound universal moral and ethical challenges faced by ordinary people in ordinary situations. Although you might say not so ordinary because of the cement large buildings and gloomy atmosphere of the inside and outside locations, you immediately accept the conditions as yours and ordinary following the beautiful and engaging stories depicted with slow rhythm and eye-catching angels of the camera. The ten episodes are not only collected under the name Dekalog but also the stories happen in the same housing project in which the viewer, from time to time, finds some characters of previous episodes. Also, a mysterious character appears in most of the episodes who seem to only observe the stories. These simple connections, although not directly connects the stories, brings a wholeness to the series that can be summarized as human condition. The stories are dramatized more through pictures and conditions than dialogues. The moral dilemmas are dealt with under the context and between the silences and barely you hear the characters talk directly about them. 
Of course, some episodes are more engaging than the others, e.g. Dekalog V: A Short Film About Killing. This episode puts in picture the absurdity of the capital punishment. A young boy who feels responsible for his sister’s death and does not have desire to live anymore is planning a crime as though touching the limits of brutality. The junior lawyer defending him cannot do anything, and finally we see a detailed setting and step-by-step procedure of an execution though, through slow rhythm of the film, we can have enough time between each step for reflection. Another beautiful episode of the series is Dekalog VI: A Short Film About Love where a lonely teenage boy spies on a lonely woman and her sex life. He loves the woman and tells this to her. But the woman who does not believe in love invites him to her apartment to humiliate his sexual inexperience. After that, the boy suicides and the woman feels not only guilty about that but also feels the love given to her from this lonely boy.

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