The two most famous Dekalog episodes are 5 and 6, because both were later expanded into feature films. Episode 5 became “A Short Film About Killing,” which deepened the complexity of Miroslaw’s story and the morality behind his capital punishment. And episode 6 was transformed into “A Short Film about Love,” arguably the only love story Kieslowski has ever created.

To make that argument, I need to assert that neither “The Double Life of Veronique” nor the Three Colours films are romantic love stories. If there’s love in the Veronique tale, it’s between the soul couplet of Weronika and Veronique, even though they never met. The psychic connection between them defines the story. The romantic subplot between Veronique and her puppetmaster is not a romance at all, but rather a tale of mistaken love that the audience is tricked into believing is something more.

Mistaken love is all over Kieslowski’s body of work, perhaps most prevalently in this episode. And I need to point out that this isn’t a love story either. Episode 6 is more a story about voyeurism and obsession. In “A Short Film about Love,” the voyeurism and obsession are, eventually, reciprocal, which transforms it into that love story. But here, the interest and attention mostly goes one way from the 19 year old man Tomek towards the “older woman” (although she can’t be much older than her mid-30s) Magda.

There is clearly an element of menace in Tomek’s obsessive watching and manipulating, but Kieslowski uses his protagonist’s youth as a way of deflecting judgment towards him. We are meant to see Tomek as perhaps too shy or awkward to engage with Magda directly. In one early scene, he calls Magda, leading her to angrily point out that she can hear him breathing. He immediately calls up again to apologize, then hang up. It’s somewhat endearing. But make no mistake, the level of his manipulation and transgression is disturbing.

The episode begins with what looks like an annoying but benign situation. Magda has gone to the post office and Tomek is the clerk serving her. She provides him with a notice. He begins checking a card file. She pays no attention to him, looks away, checks something in her purse. Meanwhile Tomek is not actually looking, he’s staring at her. Only when she returns her eyes to him does he start looking through the cards. He tells her that there is nothing by that name. Apparently the notice is for receipt of a money order — she’s gone to the post office expecting that someone has sent her some money.

But now she gets the bad news that there’s no money for her to receive, that the notice was sent in error. Naturally, she’s frustrated, this is a waste of her time. Tomek allows her to look through the register to see for herself that she’s not listed in it. This just gives him more time to stare. She asks when to come back, he says when you get another notice.

The episode then cuts dramatically to shards of glass crashing on a school gymnasium floor at night, the gym in darkness. A few seconds later, we see Tomek land on the floor. Apparently he’s smashed a window to get into the gym, which is his entry point into the school. He moves carefully, checks to see if anyone heard him enter, then moves down a hallway.

We cut to Magda. Interestingly, the camera gazes at her through a window, as if we are peeping toms observing her in her apartment. She’s looking at her mail. She’s taken off her shoes and put them on the table. She takes off her scarf, then moves to another room in the house, one with a big dramatic painting taking up much of the space. This is her bedroom, making our voyeurism even more intrusive. She steps back and observes the painting.

Back to Tomek, who is walking the school hallway. He has some metal object in his hand — is it a flashlight or something to smash another window?

Returning to Magda, she lifts her purple scarf up against the painting, hangs it there, then walks into the kitchen area again to hang up her coat. She returns to her bedroom and takes off a shirt, revealing a much more revealing top (with no bra) underneath.

Tomek turns on a flashlight. He is in an AV department. He sees some computers and random electronics. Then he sees a small telescope on a shelf, picks it up, folds it and puts it in his jacket side pocket.

Magda is doing something odd in her kitchen now, holding a top attached to a string over a piece of bread. Kieslowski likes to show adults playing with children’s toys. She bites the piece of bread and drinks of a glass milk bottle. She takes the bread and bottle with her to her bedroom, where she goes to her right knee in front of her painting.

Now we see the telescope. Tomek has been spying on her from his apartment across the courtyard — our voyeurism is his. We only see the telescope.

Cut to Magda, some kind of paint scratcher in hand, taking off a small piece of this mural in front of her. Then we hear a phone dialing tone. She picks up her red phone … says hello twice … then shows her annoyance, saying “I’m getting sick of this! Who is this?” We see Tomek on the phone both watching through the telescope and listening to the phone as she says this: “I hear you breathing, you bastard.”

Next, Tomek does what I mentioned before. He hangs up, but immediately calls back to say he’s sorry. But that doesn’t stop him from looking. The scene briefly cuts to an old woman watching a black and white TV show. We are unsure at this point who she is. We go back to Magda, who strips her bed of the blanket and top sheet. She is wearing no pants, just a long shirt and underwear. She goes to the door, a man in a suit carrying a briefcase enters. She embraces him. The man reaches under her underwear to rub her butt — the closest thing to nudity you will find in The Dekalog.

Tomek, seeing the skin, pulls away from the telescope. He gets up and now we hear that music from the TV … he apparently lives with that old woman. Tomek says he’s taking out the garbage. She tells him the chute doesn’t work — does anything work in Poland in this era? — and he responds “I know.”

As the segment ends, the old woman looks back over her shoulder as Tomek walks out. Is she concerned about him? Is she his mother or grandmother?

Kieslowski, in general, does not seem to like young men. They are always up to strange things and are incapable of forming normal relationships with the women in their lives. As we will soon see, not only is Tomek a young man who feels he must manipulate and control women, he seems to have picked up these bad habits purely by imitating others.