Dekalog, dziewiec

Eventually, this episode from the DEKALOG series will take on a life of its own. Beginning with a melodramatic premise-- a successful young doctor afflicted with irremediable impotence instructs his loving wife to take a lover-- Kieslowski constructs a 50 minute drama of extraordinary impact, the end of which is an affirmation of their marriage as a spiritual state these partners only half-perceive themselves. I called the film tragic above, but its arc parallels Shakespeare's late romance, THE WINTER'S TALE, right down to a near-miraculous conclusion. A lovely piece of work.

This is one of the most potent Dekalogs for a while. The setup is one of those brilliant Kieslowski touches of sending us echoes that we're uncertain if from a hazy future or from inside the soul. He had plans to turn this into a third Short Film but gave up after exhaustion.

A husband discovers he's unable to have children, the doctor suggesting divorce, the end of his marriage. This is interlaid with shots of the wife back home looking for him in an empty apartment. There's a desolate sense between the two of them, something lost along the way and no one looked for it to put it back in. They lay on the same bed now, he has shared the news, and suggests she takes up an affair.

But is all of this, as in film noir, a dreamlike urge of pushing her away from him, or deep down wanting to? At the hospital where he works we get the sense that he's fascinated by a young patient who has a lovely voice but her heart might give way if she becomes a singer. She is content to not pursue this love.

So there is something, the Kieslowskian touch as I am discovering with these Dekalogs, of elusively inhabiting something that's been laying in wait and opens chasms in who these characters are. What we see may be what she's thought about before in a marriage that was draining itself away.

But then it slowly drains itself away. It sets itself up for formulaic surprises where now the boyfriend shows up where she went on a trip and he finds out and is heartbroken. We have what's by now a very typical tension in the series. If you have seen previous Dekalogs in a row, like I did, this will be slight by now.

'Dekalog' is a towering achievement and a televisual masterpiece that puts many feature films to shame, also pulling off a concept of great ambition brilliantly. Although a big admirer of Krzysztof Kieślowski (a gifted director taken from us too early), and who has yet to be disappointed by him, to me 'Dekalog' and 'Three Colours: Red' sees him at his best.

All of 'Dekalog's' episodes have so many great things, and it is an example of none of the lesser episodes (my least favourite being the still very good Episode 8) being bad. This is testament to the high quality of 'Dekalog' as an overall whole and how brilliant the best episodes are.

Episode 9 is yet another great one from 'Dekalog'. The story is one of the slighter ones of the series, but that is by no means a flaw. My only complaint is the middle act dragging a little bit, otherwise Episode 9 is great stuff while falling short of being one of the best 'Dekalog' stories like Episodes 1, 4, 5 and 6.

As per usual, it is exceptionally well made. The production values in Episode 9 are as ever atmosphere-enhancing, beautiful and haunting to look at and fascinating, definitely cannot be faulted on the technical front. The direction is quietly unobtrusive, intelligently paced and never too heavy, and the music is suitably intricate.

Characters are interesting, well-developed and feel like real people in a compelling sense. The story is thematically rich with much to say about its central conflict of sexuality and love. They are explored intelligently without descending into heavy-handedness, and the episode is powerfully moving, thought-provoking and life-affirming. The acting is superb as to be expected, with complexity and nuances by the bucket-load.

All in all, great 'Dekalog' episode but not one of the series' finest. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Decalogue 9 - "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife" is a story of the words misinterpreted, the important phone calls missed by a second. The loving couple has to deal with the serious problems that include the husband's impotence and the wife's infidelity. She loves her husband and does not want to leave him even after she learns the sad truth about his condition. She wants to end a strictly physical affair with a younger boyfriend. Her husband does not know that and the tragedy of errors just about to happen…

Decalogue 9 is also interesting because in it we first meet the main character of Kieslowski's later film, "Double Life of Veronique." Roman, the hero of Decalogue 9 is a heart surgeon and works in the hospital. One of his patients is a young, full of life girl who loves to sing and has a heart condition. Her favorite composers are Bach, Mozart, and Van den Budenmayer (a fictitious Dutch composer whose music is written by the regular Kieslowski's associate, Zbigniew Preisner).

9/10

Surgeon reacts to a diagnosis of impotence as if it were a terminal illness, urging his wife to take a lover and plunging into suicidal depression. His wife, however, is willing to live with the diagnosis and swears to a love above and beyond sex, which he rejects, at first; the movie is about his struggling with and final acceptance of this Platonic ideal. Jealousy leads him to spy on and covet his own wife, ergo the commandment. But this only humiliates him further. In a parallel, somewhat superfluous plot, a young female patient asks his advice about a risky operation which would enable her to sing, her life's dream. Both face the same dilemma of whether or not to accept a physical limitation which deprives them of their life's passion. Unlike him, the young woman is willing to live with her disease and forego singing. He changes her mind.

I thought the surgeon and the film, both, over-reacted to the diagnosis, assigned too much weight to it. The melodramatic lack of perspective makes the movie as moribund as its subject matter. Of course, it's amply color coded; the passing stranger in white rides by again; and, again, there's lapse of credibility: the surgeon shares a cigarette with the patient who is supposed to have a disease so debilitating as to prevent her from singing--this makes no sense. But, once again, K. knows how to make the final scene count, canceling earlier shortcomings, at least for a moment.

Overwrought arty soap opera.

By this stage of the series one is right to be more than a little weary and wary of having the same heart strings tugged on to play the same melancholy tune.