Romek gets out of a cab. We are expecting him to arrive home without his car, but he’s not leaving the cab at his apartment complex, he’s being dropped off in front of his mother-in-law’s apartment. He looks up and sees a light on.

So, Romek understands that Hansa gave him a false timeline of the day, that she knew she would be in Warsaw and at her mother’s house for her scheduled tryst. He’s just confirmed that. There’s not anything left for Romek to confirm at this point, he knows everything that is going on. So why does he persist with his surveillance rather than confronting Hansa with what he knows?

At a certain point, surveillance stops being about self knowledge and protection and becomes voyeurism. Remember that Romek is the one who suggested that Hansa find a new sexual partner (I won’t even say lover in this context.) And the one she found, Mariusz, should suit the purposes very well — he’s ridiculously young (I wonder if he might even be in high school) so he poses no intellectual threat to Romek. Leaving her husband for this boy toy would create significant financial hardship for Hansa, who must on some level enjoy the financial rewards of being married to a surgeon, even if he’s a Polish communist surgeon.

We cut to Hansa in bed with Mariusz, crying. These do not seem at all like tears of joy, she’s feeling deep grief over her activities. We do not see their hands through most of the love scene, only at the very end when Mariusz rubs a finger against Hansa’s face, but she gently grabs it and guides it away from there — not exactly a rejection, but a reframing, sex but not affection.

Romek is the hallway of the building, presumably listening, although he’d need very sharp ears considering that he’s likely several rooms away from the activity. The apartment door opens, we see Mariusz leaving — whistling as he goes, perhaps even skipping. He see only Romek’s hands as he waits for Mariusz to leave, then works his way down the stairs and bannister towards the apartment door. He pulls out his key to open the door, but then hears Hansa on the other side and scurries into darkness. She locks the door and slowly meanders on her way. Romek watches her go to the car.

She throws her bag on the hood of the car, then gets in and seems to collapse on the steering wheel, leading to a car alarm to go off … the lights flashing, horn beeping rhythmically. We do not know how long this goes on, because the scene next cuts to the bathroom in their apartment, Romek near the door, his head in his hands. Hansa tries to enter, but it’s locked. She calls to him and he opens the door.

Romek says he can’t sleep. He says “tell me something, were you good at physics?” As she enters the room, we get this great shot where you can see Hansa face towards the audience on the left side of the screen, while there’s a mirror that shows us Romek’s face on the right. She gives him an answer about the physics question.

I have to pause here, because it seems obvious to me that Romek is making an indirect tell by bringing up physics. She must suspect that he’s seen Mariusz’s notebook. But she’s playing along anyway. Perhaps they are playing different games at this point — Hansa assumes that the suspicion is part of the play, but doesn’t realize the lengths of Romek’s surveillance. In any event, it’s impossible at this point for her to suspect nothing, to actually believe that Romek is unaware of her affair.

She then tries to get tender, asks if he had a bad day. He says yes and answers affirmatively when she asks if someone died in operation. She’s caressing his face and he says “don’t do that.” She tries to ask more about the surgery, he says “don’t touch me.” She gently pulls her hand away and says “I’m sorry.”

We don’t know how much time has passed between that scene and the next — it is a hallmark of Kieslowski, the way he compresses cinematic time — but we next see Hansa turning up the volume on the TV, then going to make a phone call she doesn’t want Romek to hear. (I have to point out that she’s watching a very strange black and white cartoon on the tv, featuring a house being washed away by a flood.) As she starts dialing, Romek picks up his earpiece, ready again to surveil.

Mariusz notes to Hansa that she has been avoiding him — hasn’t wanted to meet him for a week. She tells him that she wants to see him now. She asks if Thursday at 6 is good. He asks if anything is wrong, she confirms the time. We witness this conversation by looking at Romek’s face throughout — and of course it ends with his head in his hands. Hansa calls to Romek, asking if he is there. He answers yes.

We next cut to that Thursday tryst. Hansa is in the apartment setting up. Romek has arrived in advance, positioned inside a closet this time to observe. Perhaps in the past he didn’t arrive in time to see it in action, but this time he is ready, in a spot with a view into the bedroom. Hansa finds the pope postcard and is about to tear it, when she hears the doorbell ring.

Mariusz comes in — she tells him to not bother taking off his jacket, she doesn’t have much time. We’re watching all of this from Romek’s point of view, so we only get slats of visibility, just like we are peering out of a wardrobe. Mariusz comes from behind, kisses Hansa on the neck — she moves away. He moves in to embrace her, she pushes him back and says no, don’t.

She then tells him no, for good. This is the last time we’re meeting. She asks him to go. He replies that he loves her, which they have never talked about. She replies, and we won’t. She then rebuffs his attempts to bring up Romek, saying they won’t discuss him either. She adds that he didn’t find out and is never going to. At this point, it seems impossible to believe that she truly believes this — she must be aware of her husband’s behavior enough to at least strong suspect that he knows.

He leaves. Hansa exhales — we’re still watching from Romek’s point of view. If I were to follow the typical way I cut scenes, in 7 1/2 to 8 minute chunks, it would stop here and leave what comes next for the next essay. But I feel that would be very un-Kieslowskian, that the next scene belongs with what we just experienced.

Hansa is preparing to leave the apartment, but on her way out, she makes a direct glimpse into the wardrobe and sees Romek there. She walks directly in front of our view, it is like she is glaring back at us. It cuts to Romek inside, he closes his eyes. We sit in the silence a few seconds more, then Hansa asks him to come out.

She looks angry. She asks him quietly again. When he continues to hold still, she then yells “come out here!” This is the first moment of open anger that we have witnessed between the couple. But he’s still in the wardrobe, but now scrunched down, hold an ear. She asked him why he did it. She asks if he wanted to see them rolling in bed, then says he should have come last week, he would have seen everything.

This feels very cruel to me. Isn’t there an equivalent of transgression going on here? She could have come clean at any point up until now and reminded Romek that he asked her to find a new sex partner. But she assumed that the game required shadows — and is angry mostly because her assumptions about the game were wrong.

Romek responds that he was there the previous week, listening from the stairs. A doorbell interrupts the tension. Romek asks her to answer it. She goes to the door, it’s Mariusz. He says that he would like to marry her if she would divorce Romek. She closes the door on him without a response.

As she comes back from the door, she sees that Romek has fled the wardrobe and might have gone out a window, which is open. She frantically scurries to find him. But he is, in fact, in the laundry room, his head down on a sink. This recalls the self harm scene from Dekalog 6. She eventually finds him and asks him to hold her. Romek replies “I can’t.”

It’s a heartbreaking scene where all of the secrets and lies of their relationship come to the fore. But it’s crucial at this point to be reminded — this is heartbreak that they’ve asked for. Absent the sexual release, this couple — that clearly loves one another — needs a different layer of emotional friction to sustain them.