Dekalog 1

The most haunting image of Dekalog one is the line “I am ready _” made complete with the blinking cursor. Who is ready? I am sure that Kieslowski has discussed this ending in an interview with someone, but before I venture to explore that, I want to express a possibility, something

Kryzsztof approaches the pond, but he is still looking for Pawel. He has taken a walkie-talkie and tries to connect with Pawel that way. He gets no response. We hear helicopters in the distance ... he is still avoiding the dread. It is very human to avoid the dread. People put

There are certain things in life that are difficult to talk or write about, even when they are impersonal. I took a break from The Dekalog for the last several days because the scenes of grief in this episode are difficult to hold at a distance, especially because the main

The Dekalog was created for Polish television and for many years, it could only been viewed in the low resolution 480i standard for global broadcasting. Criterion’s BluRay was remastered from Kieslowski’s original film, so it looks far more beautiful today than it did in its day. There were

The bulk of this segment is taken up by a group chess match in which Krzysztof and Pawel participate. A young woman is playing about a dozen players at a time, Pawel declares at one point that she has already defeated six. They are seated in a circle, the young

The first half of this segment takes place in a university lecture hall. Krzysztof is a professor of linguistics, which I would not have guessed — I assumed he would be a math professor. But there is a computational element to this lecture, it just takes a few minutes to get