Ten Times the Fun

I see way too many movies. I've even - I admit with some trepidation - written a couple myself. And I live in LA so I feel it is my God-given right to give you my opinion on them.

You should watch The Decalogue. All ten parts of it. With subtitles.

Yes, I balked too. When my friend Kedric called me up and asked for a standing date to see the entire Decalogue, two parts at a time, over the next five weeks, I protested that I'd way rather see The Exorcist again. "Come on," he said, "You know I have this art snobbery thing. I need to be able to tell people I saw the whole thing on the big screen."

For those of you non-Sundance Channel subscribers, The Decalogue is a series of ten short film created for Polish television by Krzystof Kieslowski, the dead genious auteur who did Blue, White, Red, and The Double Life of Veronique. Each part of The Decalogue is inspired by one of the Ten Commandments.

Now, I sat through Blue, and White, and Red, but I'll allow I only truly dug the first part. And I'm game for subtitles, but it better be profound dialogue if I have to read it. And I went to Jewish school when I was a kid, but I don't remember all ten of the commandments, much less the order they go in. So the only reason I agreed to go was this: they're short.

Keeping all this in mind, you must see that for me to tell you not only to rent these films when they are released later this month, but to buy the entire collection, they must be amazing.

These are not simple stories with morals. In fact, so many of the rules are being broken in each film that even with a crib sheet it's hard to keep track. The characters all seem to live in the same monstrous five-year-plan-looking apartment complex, so that a central character from one segment might share an elevator with someone we'll see again in the next. "I Am The Lord Thy God," the first film, is the story of a single father - a scientist - who teaches his son (a little boy who makes Haley Joel Osmont look like that creepy robot girl in the Welch's grape juice commercials) that answers can always be found through reason and mathematics. The boy programs his computer to tell him what his absent mother is doing every hour of the day, and when the pond freezes, they consult the computer to see if the ice is strong enough to hold them for skating. That science fails is not the surprising thing, it's that even though you see what's coming, you're utterly sucked in. The characters' rich inner lives are what drive these films. From almost the first frame, they seem familiar to you. They feel like your neighbors. You care about what they're going through; you go through it with them.

The realness of these people is almost shocking if your usual fare is American magazine-gloss movies. The men are going bald, the women have wrinkles, and the teenagers have acne. Some of these actors are poster children for why you shouldn't smoke. It's not like there are no Beautiful People in Poland. It appears as if these actors have actually been cast because they are the best people for the role, and not because they look cute in a robe. You need look no farther than part two, when an emaciated, greasy-looking man in a hospital bed shifts agonizingly under the sheets as water drips from the ceiling onto his metal bed frame. Without a word, without even lifting his head, he conveys the enormity of his torture, the weight of his will to live.

Though there is a strong sense of punishment or Karma, Kieslowski seldom settles for the easy answer, instead letting us watch conflict simmer on the faces of his actors. In episode four ("Honor Thy Father and Mother"), a father and his 20 year old daughter enjoy a close, almost flirtatious relationship - they douse each other with water on Easter morning, even comment frankly on each other's lovers. When she finds a letter from her dead mother that they both strongly suspect will reveal that he is not her father, they struggle with the repercussions of opening it, of how their relationship could change. In five, "A Short Film About Killing," we watch a murder that goes on and on, killing a person being far more difficult than the murderer imagined.

These films are smart, compelling, and deeply felt. You may not realize how much you crave a third dimension in your movies until you get into The Decalogue. And, of course, you'll sound oh so impressive when you recommend it to your friends.

--Sera Gamble