About 15 years ago, I took a couple wonderful adult education classes at the Newberry Library in Chicago about the works of Nikolai Gogol. The class was taught by a Ukrainian woman who, naturally, spent some time making the case that Gogol is a Ukrainian writer even though his greatest works were in Russian. Her argument was more about style and tone than language. The tradition of Russian writing is highly moral in tone -- Tolstoy, Doestoyevsky and later Solzhenitsyn come to mind. But Russian writers who borrowed or stole from other Eastern European traditions--those built on folklore, an attraction to the grotesque, and surrealism--tended to write quite differently.

Gogol was a great example of this, as was Bulgakov in "The Master and Margarita." Chekhov balanced himself right in between both traditions. But you see this absurdist style, comfortable with the grotesque, throughout Eastern Europe, from Czech writer Franz Kafka to contemporary Hungary novelist Laszlo Krasznahorkai.

This episode of The Dekalog veers into the Eastern European surrealist tradition more than anything else in Kieslowski's body of work. In past essays, I've mentioned some of the cinema of the 1980s as possible influences, as Kieslowski was an avid student of cinema and traveled the film festival circuit enough to be exposed to what Hollywood was doing in that era. So, it's an interesting question to explore: was Kieslowski borrowing from Martin Scorsese's Kafka-influenced movie "After Hours" in the style of this episode, or were he and Scorsese borrowing from the same cultural sources?

Either way, the deeper we get into this night, the stranger it becomes. That scene with the carolers that I wrote about last, it's impossible to take it at face value. It's a completely absurd occurrence, something Gogol would appreciate fully. And now we get to a truly bizarre and horrific scene, perhaps the only place in Kieslowski's body of work where he hints at the grotesque specter of anti-semitism in Poland.

They arrive outside of a drunk tank in Warsaw, which isn’t a police station, it’s this strange caged complex run by a bizarre bald man in a white coat. We can see two naked men huddled inside the locked cage with a Christmas tree inside. Janusz does all the talking in this segment. We first see the executor of the drunk tank rifling through a card catalog, asking if Garus is a Jew. Ewa shakes her head no. The executor then says that they had a Garus in the tank in 1979, he was a Jew.

Janusz steps forward at this point to state the obvious question: you keep a card of every person you hold in this tank? He gleefully replies yes. Two follow up questions I’d have: 1) what do you need this information for, and 2) why do you ask or find out the religion of someone picked up for public drunkenness? The unnecessary cataloging by this creepy looking bald man suggests something that becomes a little more explicit when he promises to find out if tonight’s captives are this man Garus.

He takes a water hose, cold water of course, and sprays it on the naked, sleeping men. He jokes “look at them dance.” He then demands that they turn around. Janusz has finally had enough, so he steps forward and demands that he stop — which prompts the executor to threaten to put him in the tank. Janusz, who is at least three inches taller, steps towards him at challenges him to try. He rips the hose out of the executor’s hand … then says “let’s see you dance.” And the next thing we see, he and Ewa are hurrying away.

They get to the car and Janusz is fed up. He says he’s going home, this is ridiculous. Ewa takes his hand and puts the car in drive. He asks where he should drop her. She takes his hand on the wheel as they drive off. As she does so, she quickly glances at her watch, the first sign that time matters in this episode. As they are driving, she grabs hold of the wheel and steers the car off the road and into a public Christmas tree, which falls on the car. They are now bathed in red light. Ewa reaches over and wipes some small blood off Janusz’s forehead. She becomes apologetic and says she is sorry for ruining his Christmas and smashing up his car.

Janusz brushes off the apology, saying it has been fun (which might actually be the twisted truth.) She then makes one last plea to Janusz — please come with me to the train station. Janusz complies. They get to the station and it is entirely empty, except for one sleeping person on the second floor of the building. There’s a lone Christmas tree in a massive empty hall. The building monitors have been left unattended.

But now, in the final surreal act of the night, a security officer, a young blonde woman, approached them quickly on a skateboard. She is in full security officer dress, including a tie. She apologizes for the rushed activity, saying she skateboards at this hour to keep awake. Janusz asks if there have been any accidents today. Ewa says a man comes here often, in a short white sheepskin jacket. He comes often but never takes a train. Have you seen him? She produces a picture for her. The young woman shrugs. The woman picks up her skateboard and walks off.

We have now approached the episode’s punchline. But I will hold that until tomorrow’s essay.