Dekalog, osiem

Dekalog 8 introduces a debate about a situation described in the second episode of the series, with regard to some interesting researches about thematic morals made in an unadorned lecture hall. As in a game of mirrors, Kieslowski's magical poetry proposes subtle allusions, references, previous solutions analysed under different points of view.

The analysis of Elzbieta's personal story framed within the context of her restless past and recalled in the light of her present time made of painful and unavoidable confrontations proposes the harassing thought about our duty to God, about our moral obligations towards the Christian commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour". Is it possible to be merciful to our fellowmen even at the risk of violating the dictates of divine commandments? Are we allowed to help people even if we are aware about the incompatibility between the ethical principles applied to the evidences of religion and the intention of "bearing false witness against our neighbour" to a good purpose? Is it really possible to give up the idea of getting out of the clutches of the Nazi police a six-year-old Jewish child in the desperate need of a certificate of baptism only on account of moral and religious scruples? The dramatic explanation between Elzbieta, haunted by the memories of her unhappy childhood, and Zofia, the elder woman who refused to give her a passport to safety many years ago, call to our minds a sense of bewilderment and affliction.

Both of them are afraid of something going up in smoke around them and nothing escapes their remembrances of a painful past. Sad remembrances of course, because nothing hurts like the truth. Crude in the same manner as a vivisection of the soul. Conjured up with surgical precision in the coldness of an utterly impersonal ambient. Maybe only a cathartic face to face between the two women would give life to new friendly relations made of comprehension, explanations, reconciliations. Kieslowski divides all humanity into two parts: the saviors and the saved. His strict dialectics traces all the uneven steps of the story in a very subtle way. He likes to give back to human dignity its state of primitive and natural innocence, deeply upset by a pressing sense of misinterpreted obedience to the precepts of the Church.

With a minimum of histrionics, this film tells a simple story about the legacy of the holocaust in Poland.

A college professor who once turned away a little Jewish girl who sought refuge is confronted by that same girl -- now in her forties -- and must explain to her the real reason for turning her away. While the two women are able to forge a deep friendship, the man (a tailor) who risked his life to try and save the girl has become, with time, too closed off to allow her to form any sort of bond with him. The film's last image, of the lonely tailor looking out the window of his shop to see the professor and her friend laughing together, has the same straight forward and unassuming emotional wallop that ends many of Kieslowski's films.

This may be the best fictional film ever made about the holocaust.

Like "Dekalog, jedem", it is one of the most powerful episode of the serie for me. The admirable performance of Maria Koscialkowska, the beautiful work of Teresa Marczewska as Elzbieta , reminding the performance of Krystyna Janda in "Dekalog ,dwa" are the lead virtues. The reference to the dilemma of Dorota Geller is, for same reason, a significant clue. In same measure, it is an episode about Shoah and its shadows, about fear and about resurrection of past price. About a decision and its profound, hidden roots. About the expected word. A special film. For the exploration of the memories of the viewer.

Everyone, and I mean everyone who is alive, should spend some time with Kieslowski. And to do it right, you need to spend time with these ten experiments.

Yes, they are experiments and they are important to the history of cinematic imagination.

They are all cowritten. The writing partner sets a knot, a dramatic tangle. Kieslowski then enters this scribble and adds cinematic reality in two ways. The first is simply the cinematic platform of storytelling. The second are a set of cinematic elaborations. Its this second bit that makes him so exciting.

They're what I call cinematic folds, but because this is the short form (the movie equivalent of short stories) they only have to be suggested. Taken together, the collection of ten short films is a few hundred loose fishooks, many of which catch you unawares.

In his "colors" work he folds these back in his long form experiments.

To make this a real experience for us and him, he does most of his work after the project begins filming. And to up the ante, for each of these ten he uses a different creative crew. So you would expect some of these ten to be more adventurous and successful than others.

This is the case. This is the least successful of them so far.

The value, at least to me, in these is how much Kieslowski there is compared to Piesiewicz. The more of Kieslowski's visual improvisation, the better. This has very little. Blunt viewers will still enjoy the story, which is interesting as such things go. But there's little of the master here. Must have been a time of rest.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

American Jewish Holocaust survivor returns to Poland to confront the woman who refused to save her from the Nazi's by refusing to falsify her Baptism papers when she was 6 (same age as the little girl of VII). This issue of the long-buried, unresolved/unresolvable hatred of the victim and guilt of the tormentor was much more effectively dramatized by the movie Death and the Maiden. As in VII, so much of the conflict takes place in the past, that the film ends up overly talky, too chatty. As usual, color coding intrudes.

Two major problems make the movie specious, morally duplicitous. One, the survivor's physical features, her thick lips, big nose, dark eyes, and coarse black hair, conform exactly to the derisive stereotype of the Jew used in myriad anti-Semitic cartoons dating from the 19th century through the 3rd Reich. It's like casting an African-American who looks just like a cartoon Sambo. Her homeliness stands in marked contrast to the attractiveness of each and every other female in the series. One can only wonder to what degree this was unintentional, unconscious, reflecting an accepted assumed bigotry.

Second, just like the contortionist in the park (was he meant to mock the film?), K. bends over backward to exonerate the Pole from guilt. The plot twist of her having received word in advance that the SS was sending out children in need of Baptism papers as decoys is just too convenient (again, that problem of credibility). Her belonging to the Polish underground is even harder to swallow, even more unlikely. What Polish underground? That must have been a really exclusive minority. There was no organized effort by any Polish underground to save Jews; whatever Jews happened to be rescued were done so by individuals acting on their own. To claim otherwise, as K. does, is to lie. Widespread deep-seated Polish anti-Semitism both predated and survived the Nazi invasion; Poles killed Jews even after the Nazi's retreated. To this day they make life insufferable for the scarce Jews who remain in their country. (I have this directly from a Jewish colleague who grew up in and fled modern Communist Poland.)

The bonding between victim and tormenter seems a hollow contrivance to evade responsibility. This is the only episode with a pat ending. In fact, it casts all those that preceded in a dubious light. It itself bears false witness.