Dan Conley

I mentioned in the last essay that Episode 5 looks like nothing else in The Dekalog. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, when Kieslowski was finding the funds for The Dekalog, he played a little trick on the Polish arts funding apparatus. He applied through normal government

Dekalog 5 is the most famous episode in the series, in part because Kieslowski expanded upon it in his feature film “A Short Film About Killing.” It’s his most distinctive looking episode, shot in a completely unique high-contrast style that looks nothing like anything else in Kieslowski’s body

The segment begins with a long shot of Anka in bed. Given all that we have seen in this episode, we can’t be entirely sure that she’s in that bed alone — but she is. She’s awakened by clanking milk bottles. We will learn the significance of those

After some silence and delay, the first thing Michal says next is that when he went away on long trips or found other reasons to be out of the house, he hoped something irreversible would happen. He wanted Anka to find someone, get pregnant and start a family so his

We arrive at the two scenes that bring all of the strands of “Three Colors: Blue” together. But I don’t want to write about them, not the same way I usually do. Recounting the dialogue, trying to describe the camera shots and the actors’ reaction, it’s all just

Dekalog 4 takes on a difficult subject matter, but it has universal meaning. The father-daughter element makes viewers squeamish. But the relationship between Anka and Michal could also be viewed as a stand-in for any impossible relationship surrounded by longing. Longing is the most difficult feeling because it pits our