In my opinion, Dekalog 4 is Kieslowski’s most difficult and essential artistic statement. This is a dense episode where 20 years of relational subtext comes bursting out, immediately and dangerously. The intense, forced audience trauma of Dekalog 4 is something I have rarely experienced outside of an Ingmar Bergman film, and I believe this piece finds similar psychological depth.

To appreciate Kieslowski’s artistic courage, we have to put aside any judgments we’re tempted to express towards the characters. The easiest — laziest — response to Episode 4 is to say “ick” and think about it as little as possible. And there is good reason for this revulsion, given the subject matter and, regardless of the genetic truth, the indisputable truth that Michal raised Anka. He is her father. In fact, he is her only parent, giving him something akin to a god-like responsibility towards her.

But the real human predicament should not prevent us from exploring the thoughts and feelings of this fictional character. If we prevent artists from exploring the full range of human impulses and feelings, we close the door to ever fully understanding the human heart. Likewise, if we prevent real human beings from bringing their deepest, hidden desires to light, we enslave them to the destructive acts that result when we refuse to bring darkness to light.

In the previous scene, Anka had a vision test, one where f-a-t-h-e-r was the answer. In the published screenplays, this metaphor is extended to the conclusion and Michal makes a statement about the perils of seeing things clearly. Kieslowski, as he nearly always does, wisely goes for less. The original ending achieved too much clarity and risked landing on the nose.

This segment begins with an object, one of Kieslowski’s favorite cinematic tropes. He loves to affix deep meaning to objects and, in this case, it is the letter that holds the truth about Anka’s history and her feelings. She is seeking answers about why she feels the way she does, why her love for her father transcends the typical parental bond.

So when she gathers this object, she treats it as something holy. She picks it up, turns it on its corners, holds it up to light to see what exactly might be inside, even smells it. The answers to her existence lie within it and this is her opportunity to have the answers. But she hesitates.

Next there is a knock on the apartment door. She opens the door to Jarek. In the published screenplay, this discussion takes place at the airport, but it works better back at her father’s apartment. Jarek asks if he’s done anything wrong. She replies that he is not the center of the universe. He tries to caress her but gets no response. She says that she doesn’t like when her father is away. The subtext is that her father is the center of her universe. Jarek then asks, if she’s feeling afraid or sad that her father is away, he could stay with her.

The published screenplay gives us a verbal answer, that Anka feels desire for him more strongly when her father is nearby. But here Kieslowski chooses silence and employs a risky cinematic technique he will repeat in “The Double Life of Veronique.” He has Anka slowly turn towards the camera, then stare directly into it to close the scene, which has a similar effect as Woody Allen/Alvy Singer talking directly to the audience in “Annie Hall” to point out Annie’s Freudian slip “will it change my wife?” It’s as if Anka is signaling to the audience — you know why I don’t want Jarek around when father is away, don’t you?

We next see Anka, in a long white coat, walking in a forest. This adds a fairy tale like element to the episode, that Anka needs to seek out the solitude of nature before she can disobey her father’s command and open the letter, revealing her truth. The music is plaintive. As she nears some brush and some cut logs, we can see a lake in the distance. She sits down on a log and takes out both the letter and a pair of orange scissors. We see a lone man paddling the lake in the distance, coming toward her. She pauses, stares at the letter, then slowly begins to cut the top of the envelope.

The man in the gondola approaches the shore and now we can see that it is our old friend The Watcher. Anka reaches in and sees that within the envelope there is a second envelope, this one saying “For my daughter Anna.” So the external envelope was created by her father — to be opened upon his death — but the original letter had no declaration.

If you consider that Commandment 4 is about obeying your father and mother, an interesting matter of interpretation opens up. Anka’s mother intended her to have the letter, no restrictions placed. Michal placed the restriction … but is he, in fact, her father? And if not, does Anka disobey her mother by placing his wishes (and his love) above hers?

As she looks over the new envelope and ponders it, the Watcher carries his boat to shore and walks directly past her, giving the same blank but inquisitive stare as always. As he stops and stares, she catches his eye, then puts down the pair of scissors she’s about to use on the second envelope. The Watcher walks on. She stares at scissors, drops them, then puts her mother’s envelope back inside her father’s.

Next we see Anka in an acting class. Her professor is an older man with grey hair. He asks who is next, Anka volunteers. Jarek asks to join her in the scene. According to the published screenplay, they are acting out a scene from Tennessee Williams’ “Glass Menagerie,” although I do not know for sure if that stayed the same in the film version, I don’t know the play well enough to recognize lines.

Anka recites her lines without passion, leading the professor to say “What a shrew! You love him, remember.” He adds “you’re acting like a sulking princess.” (Which, in a sense, she is at this time.) Anka asks “why would I love him? I dob’t see the subtext here.”

This is a brutal thing to say — this is Anka’s boyfriend and she can’t even fake being in love with him for an acting scene, she needs notes from her professor about how to pretend to be in love. The professor responds dismissively: “there’s always a subtext. You can love anyone. Everyone has some silly little thing.” She wants him to tell her why she might love Jarek and the professor says “that puppy dog look.”

She then recites the lines with Jarek lying on a table, the professor hovering over them. The sense I take from this scene is that Anka can only respect and transfer affection to and from an older man. It is only the presence of her professor that makes it possible for her to find these amorous thoughts and to attach them to feelings. In fact, when we see Anka acting this scene most effectively, she’s in frame with the professor/director, not her acting mate Jarek.

In fact, they close the scene with the professor taking Anka’s face in her hands and repeating the final lines, then saying “See? You know how to look at him.”

This is a psychologically vital scene in Kieslowski’s body of work because here he creates a character who directs actors the exact same way that he does, down on the floor, up close, whispering direction. Kieslowski creates his double within the film and opens a small door into Anka’s heart.

Kieslowski will repeatedly demonstrate in his films that young men are incapable of understanding or fully appreciating the women in his films. And so Kieslowski performs his own transference, taking his affection for his own daughter — which may or may not feature the same sexual/romantic confusion as this film — and redirects them into characters that he adores and who can only love older men like him.

We don’t have to like this Kieslowski paradigm to appreciate the psychological value and truth in his exploration.