The Criterion BluRay of The Dekalog includes an interview of Hanna Krall, a Polish journalist and chronicler of Holocaust survivor stories. There’s a wonderful moment in that interview where Krall tells how she wrote to Kieslowski after the “Three Colours” series and said that the people she knows in Poland aren’t glamorous like the women in his latest movies, they are tired and often overweight, like herself, and she just can’t related to these characters. Kieslowski wrote back that while the women in his films are beautiful, they are also lonely, just like the people they have talked about for many years, and because these women are so attractive, their loneliness might hurt even more because they feel an injustice in it.

This is an important feeling to hold at the beginning of Dekalog 3. Ewa and Janusz are attractive people, and it is clear from the opening scenes that they are loved. But they are still extremely lonely. You can feel it in the way that Janusz joylessly walks through the Christmas rituals. You can sense it in every glance of Ewa -- even in the tiny gestures of the gift she gives her aunt, a pair of leather gloves to a woman who likely never leaves her room, which is then followed up by scene after scene of Ewa not wearing any gloves on a cold winter night. This is a woman who has no one in her life to give her a Christmas gift and cannot bear the thought of buying one for herself, so she buys the closest person in her life the one thing she most practically needs.

The next scene opens at what should be for everyone a place of great joy, a midnight mass on Christmas Eve. The church is packed in a way that I have never seen a mass in the U.S. We see Ewa squeeze her way into a pew, among all of the standing parisoners. She looks out over the crowd, and as she does, as if prompted by a spirtual force, Janusz turns around and sees her standing about 10 rows away. Something in Ewa shifts as she catches a glimpse of Janusz. The scheming Ewa is awoken.

The rest of the shown mass is taken up with a somewhat-less-that-joyous hymn and shots of the faithful, from the children in Janusz's family to a very brief shot of Kieslowski himself. Scheming Ewa drives her car right onto a thoroughfare -- are people allowed to park like this in Warsaw? She gets out of the car, stops to think a moment, then takes off her orange scarf and puts it into the car. Why does she do this? To appear more helpless, perhaps? (We later find out that it is her husband’s scarf and she will use it as evidence that he was there.)

She then walks towards Janusz's apartment. As she arrives, she peers through the same window that Kryzsztof had earlier that evening, making a psychic connection with his feeling of loss and loneliness. Janusz is pouring champagne for the three adults in the apartment. But after he's finished, he does something curious -- he goes over to the phone and unplugs it. Seeing Ewa at mass has clearly affected him and he seems to be fearing a new Christmas Eve intrusion from her.

They toast to Christmas, Janusz gives his wife a very quick peck on the lips, and then the door buzzer sounds. Janusz goes to the door phone with his wife siddling to the doorway to listen in on what's up. She looks extremely sad as she watches him handle this interaction, as if bringing up painful memories of other excuses he's used to leave briskly for the night. He gives an odd explanation of the interaction, that some suspicious characters were gathering around his car. If this were so, then who is passing on the news? He then snaps and says "back in a minute."

Janusz gives a theatrical performance of looking around for someone or something on the street, aware that his wife is likely watching. He then jogs off to the right. We now see the same drunk man who was dragging a Christmas tree in the beginning of the episode still doing so, except now muttering to all "where is my home?" (This poor soul will later appear in the horrifying “drunk tank” scene.)

Janusz, who has seen nothing, returns to the apartment, but as he opens the apartment complex door, he sees Ewa inside lighting up a cigarette. By the way, Kieslowski commonly uses cigarettes in his films as an object of social connection. Ewa tells Janusz that he once again didn't wish her a Merry Christmas. He looks angry at her and asks what she wants. (Yes, he looks angry, but for the first time in the episode, he also looks alive.) Ewa's eyes start to well up and she tells him that Edward, her husband, is missing. Janusz tries to comfort her, rubbing his fingers on her left cheek.

Despite some protests that it's Christmas Eve, we have no douht that Janusz is going to join her on this mission. He concocts some story about the car being stolen and hands her the keys. He then goes inside and proclaims that those shady people have taken off the with car. He tells his wife to report the car stolen and then says he's going to try to find another cab. His wife seems exhausted by this game, but plays along anyway, asking why bother doing so on Christmas Eve. (By the way, since they went to Midnight Mass, it is now Christmas Day, but whatever.) He tells her he has to go, it's their living.

And off he goes into the night. While most Kieslowski films have their unique look and feel, there is something about this episode that feels like a topos of 1980s cinema, reminiscent of Jonathan Demme's film "Something Wild" and Martin Scorsese's "After Hours." But unlike the American versions of those stories, here there is no manic pixie dream girl taking the preppie young man through the wilds of American life, just two lonely, bored attractive but middle aged people finding a rare moment of excitement in their grey lives.