We finally arrive at the episode that began my journey through the Dekalog. After finishing my “The Double Life of Veronique” series, I had an idea of going back to Episode 9 of the Dekalog, where the fictional composer Van den Budenmeyer was first introduced and a Weronika-like character would end up inspiring the later film.

But when I took a new look at this episode, I saw just how small those elements were — you can barely call them a subplot — so I instead considered whether a full walk through The Dekalog was in order.

I have lost track of time while on this project — it is now second only to my original and 2023 Montaigne projects for length and depth — but I have also enjoyed the trip immensely. The episodes vary in quality, but even the disappointing ones have strong elements that make me glad they were created.

The first thing a viewer would notice about episode 9 is how important music is to it. There is an extremely spare theme that introduces every Dekalog episode, but with this one we get an extended version of it that spans across a title sequence that breaks up scenes, something Kieslowski doesn’t do in any other episode.

This use of music has two purposes. First, it signals that music will be meaningful to the story, and that makes sense given that Van Budenmeyer enters the Kieslowski corpus here. But there’s another important element. When I first learned about melodrama in a high school drama class, it was described to me as a genre where music moves the action. And you can certainly feel that in this Dekalog episode — the music is guiding our emotions to the scene before we arrive there.

In addition to music, this episode once again features Kieslowski’s interest in hands. Romek, the episode’s main character, is a surgeon, so his hands are his livelihood. His wife Hansa, do I even need to say it, evokes hands with her name alone. (Which is not to say that Hansa means hands in Poland, rather that Kieslowski must have been aware of the cross language alliteration. There are about a dozen different Polish words that can be appropriate usage for hand, at least in the sense that we use the English word. Even going from singular to plural changes the word usage.)

The episode begins with Hansa asleep, her left hand rested on her forehead. She is jolted awake. She says Romek’s name, then notes the empty spot next to her on the bed. Next, the film cuts to Romek in a doctor’s office. He tells the doctor that he wants to know the truth — he gets the response “are you sure?”

This doctor is very odd. He opens the conversation by asking Romek what his lifetime body count is … Romek struggles to come up with a definite answer … he says “8 or 9 … maybe as many as 15.” The doctor responds “that’s enough.” He then tells him that he’s been married for 15 years … the doctor says “that’s enough too.” (I should point out that throughout this discussion, we do not see the hands of either character. I sense this is intentional, that they are hiding something in the exchange.)

We then see Hansa enter their apartment — her hands visible the entire time — she peers at the phone, looks like she longs to pick it up.

Back to Romek, the doctor asks him if he has a nice wife. He says yes — the doctor responds “divorce her.” He falls silent to these words and looks sullen. We next see him driving recklessly on a rural road, knocking over some signs, almost spinning out. He has clearly been destroyed by this confirmation of his impotence.

We now have pharmaceutical solutions to most male impotence, making this episode land less harshly than I’m sure it would for audiences in 1988. But clearly Romek believes he’s been given something just short of a death sentence, the declared end of his sexual life. And he’s not taking it well.

We hear the theme music again — and the watcher drives past the car on a bicycle — a reminder that the credits aren’t quite finished. It’s not as dramatic as the 40-minutes-later opening credits in “Drive My Car,” but the effect is similar.

The glove compartment door has flown open and Romek tries a couple times to fix it — it’s both a metaphor for things falling apart and not work … and a plot device that will be put to use later in the episode.

Romek arrives home in a downpour. He keeps looking up to the light on in his apartment, reluctant to go inside. He grabs his suitcases, but instead of going inside, he paces outside in the cold rain. Finally, we see reflection of Hansa in an apartment lobby window. But he doesn’t see her, he continues to pace. Hansa finally steps outside of the building and greets Romek.

When they finally get in the elevator, she half-asks “you didn’t want to see me …” The elevator is mostly dark, it reveals patches of light as the characters speak. Romek says “I did …” and we see Hansa’s right hand touch his face. She continues to caress as she says “you’re soaked.”

Inside, Romek starts to remove his wet clothing. We see him remove his tie, Hansa then rushes over with a towel, so we see this towel over his head and her hands rubbing it. She then starts to unbutton his shirt and he gently grabs her hand.

We witness the sensuality of their touch. Next, there is this wonderful dinner scene that is all hands. Hansa is sitting with her feet up on the chair, her right hand swaying a glass of wine, her left propped up on a knee. Romek is eating with both hands, a piece of bread between them, his hands well over his plate. He lights up a cigarette. I sometimes wonder if Kieslowski characters smoke so much simply to keep their hands active.

Romek notes that while he was in Krakow, he gave a few lectures and performed a couple surgeries, and by the time he left, his money was worth half of what he was paid. This connects his impotence with the utter failure of the Polish government and economy of that time.

He wants to begin a discussion about what he learned in Krakow, but Hansa raises her hand to stop him. She tells him not now. But then we see them getting into bed together and anticipate that the discussion is about to commence. We notice Romek’s balding head for the first time here prominently.

They are now snuggled in bed, her left hand on his shoulder, and she asks him to tell everything, she is no longer afraid. He tells her the fact of his impotent, she says she doesn’t believe it, he responds that it is a fact. Hansa then asks him if he loves her. Romek refuses an answer. She grabs his right cheek and turns him towards her, asking again, face to face.

She then sits up in the bed, away from him, and says “you do love me, but you’re afraid to say it.” She then says “love isn’t gymnastics in bed.” He says “it’s that too,” to which she responds “that’s only biology.”

I want to stop here to raise what I believe is a subtext of this segment, something that couldn’t be talked about explicitly on Polish TV in the 1980s. Sex is about more than what happens with the genitals. It is essentially a creative act and the hands are the first instrument most of us use to experience it. So while Romek has every right to feel sadness for the end of his sexual pleasure, there is no reason that he cannot continue to experience sex acts in ways that please Hansa. And I believe Hansa is hinting throughout this scene that she would like to continue experiencing him this way.

She closes out the segment by saying that love is in the heart, not between the legs.

In the next segment, we will witness the beginning of a marital negotiation — one that Romek would like to define with words, but Hansa would rather leave unspoken.