We get a brief respite from the brutality inflicted on Karol Karol in an unlikely location — the Paris Metro underground. Karol has taken the comb, symbol of his profession, and turned it into a crude musical instrument akin to a kazoo. He’s trying to busk for some quick cash and is playing an old Polish song.

This attracts one of our old friends from Dekalog 4. Here he is named Mikolaj, but do we have any good reason to believe that Janusz Gajos, one of the most famous actors in Poland, wasn’t reprising the role of Michal? Michal traveled a great deal for his job. Mikolaj is in Paris, homesick, and has quite possibly lost the will to live … and we can imagine Michal might feel that way given how that episode evolved.

He takes an instant liking to Karol, recognizing the music he played and sympathizing with his plight. He sees his diplomas and calls hairdressing a “serious profession.” He asks Karol his plan — it seems to consist of earning enough money to buy a fake passport (he lost his and fears at the moment that Dominique has the police chasing after him.) Mikolaj says that the people who promise those passports are rip off artists and he should not trust them, and he has another idea.

It starts with Karol cutting Mikolaj’s hair for him right there in the subway tunnel. He doesn’t actually seem to be cutting at all, just combing. Zbigniew Zamachowski said in an interview that he didn’t have time to learn how to cut hair properly, but he did ask a barber to tell him what he should avoid doing so he wouldn’t look ridiculous, hence the minimalist approach to the scene.

The discussion turns to the matter of Dominique, who Karol admits he still loves. Mikolaj asks if she is pretty and Karol tells him that she is beautiful and describes how they met at a Warsaw hairstyling competition. But then he offers to show Mikolaj. So he takes him outside of the train station and points at a building.

There is a billboard over the building for the 1963 Jean Luc Godard film “Contempt” starring Brigitte Bardot. It’s kind of a triple joke from Kieslowski — a mistaken identification, a movie that clearly names what Dominique is showing towards Karol, and name dropping the French woman who is nearly universally considered the most beautiful (with the possible exception of Catherine Deneuve.) Mikolaj says “ah, Brigitte Bardot. She’s a little old for you, no?”

Karol then asks him to move his gaze to the left, where we can see the silhouette of Dominique. The light turns out. Karol says “she’s going to sleep.” But then we see shadows of two figures in the window, and Mikolaj says “are you so sure?”

We’ll get back to Dominique’s cruelty games in the next scene. But here it’s nice to see Karol finding someone who cares about him, even if the thing he’s asking of him in exchange for getting back to Poland is extremely dark — killing someone who has lost the will to live and wants to die.

It’s fair to ask at this point — this movie is a comedy?