Before I move on to the next scene, I want to take a few steps back to reinforce something in the last two segments of Episode 6 that deserves further elaboration — Kieslowski’s focus on hands.

In the course of their date, the encounter in Magda’s apartment and the aftermath as they separate, hands move the action … they are the melodramatic prop, Kieslowski’s marionettes.

It begins with Magda asking for Tomek’s hands, calling them gentle — the same word the old woman used to describe him. We then see another couple in an hands embrace, Magda asking Tomek to caress her like that.

As they leave the restaurant, they are walking close together, but it is notable that they do not clasp hands. That absence raises the tension.

Back at Magda’s apartment, she asks for descriptions of what she does with men. All the while, Tomek’s hands are fidgeting in front of him. Among the things Tomek recalls is a gesture she often makes, framing her face with her hands.

Magda asks Tomek if he masturbates while watching her — again, asking what he does with his hands. Then she directs his hands to her bare legs. We do not see what happens to Magda’s hands while he does this, but given what appears to be an orgasm from him, she was putting them to work.

After Tomek flees, we see Magda rifling through a bin with her hands to find an opera glass, which put her hands central in the shot as she watches for him. Tomek, in his painful to watch and impossible describe scene of self harm, uses his hands to perform each step, the camera keeping them in the center throughout.

Magda is writing a note on the back of a painting canvas, again, her hands prominently in the center of the frame.

Our hands are funny, utilitarian parts of our lives. We use them to work and to eat, to create. People look at hands to see if there are rings, signifying attachments. They make judgments about nails, gauge the strength of handshakes. There are even theories about the length of certain fingers and how much testosterone boys get in the womb and whether this determines sexual preferences.

Hands can also be deeply erotic, even if we don’t think of them first that way, and not just for the things they can do, but also for the feelings they inspire when touched.

In the most crucial part of Episode 6, Kieslowski places the hands in the center of action and discussion. It’s like a brilliant short film dropped in the middle of his epic.