Moral Complexity in Kieslowskis the Decalogue (1989)

Moral Complexity in Kieslowskis the Decalogue (1989)Although the moral stories that constitute Polish manager Krzyszto Kielowskis The Decalogue (1989) were inspired by the ecstasy Commandments (as per the guides umbrella title), the way they relate to Gods Law as revealed to Moses is by no means straightforward or clear-cut nor is the rich symbolism which Kieslowski weaves byout the films. As this paper shall demonstrate, the ideas and themes in The Decalogue are mazy and often ambiguous, especially with respect to two primary and recurring symbols the huge flat tire complex where the various characters reside and occasionally cross paths and an unnamed, mysterious male figure who hovers on the interference fringe of the action, silent and ob dowery. Kielowski uses these two symbols to illustrate and develop the metaphysic that lies at the heart of the film.The films that constitute The Decalogue should be invited by the unmarried principles to the homogeneous degree that the commandments influence our daily lives, Kielowski notes in the introduction to the published script of The Decalogue (quoted in Cunneen, 1997). Joseph Cunneen suggests that this influence is subtle and indirect. It is signifi whoremastert that the films do not have separate titles that contain text of the commandments as a result, the viewer is often unsure of the relationship between a film and a pull up stakesicular commandment to the director, if the numbers of some installations were reversed for example 6 and 9 it would identify no difference (Cunneen, 1997). Kielowski hence encourages intellectual guess engagement on the part of his auditory modality. I merely announce, for example, Decalogue 1. The spectator looks at the film and . . . begins to trust about the commandment(s). (Kielowski, as quoted in Cunneen, 1997). For example, in Decalogue VI there take hold ofm to be no university extension to any one particular commandment, though it does contain references to stealing (the peeping-tom protagonist steals a telescope to descry on a female neighbor) and killing (the same character slashes his wrists near the end of the film).This thoroughly un-didactic court enables Kielowski and his co-screenwriter, Krzysztof Piesiewicz, to develop their themes with subtlety and restraint (Porton, 50). In The Decalogue, as in deportment, nothing is cut and dried. Each occurrence can be likened to a moral parable that suggests . . . how we can live ethically in a world where the false comfort of either a belief in God or dialectic materialism is unavailable, states Porton (Porton, 48). Jonathan Rosenbaum would seem to agree that the films power is suggestive sooner than didactic The finely shape scripts of these films become suggestions of how we might think about these people, not directives about how we should judge them (Rosenbaum, 159).He goes on to consecrate that the decision to produce a series of films that correspond to the Ten Commandmen ts in name and number is fundamentally a packaging idea, successfully designed to give Kielowski an international reputation and made in part for export (Rosenbaum, 155). By the directors own admission, he and Piesiewicz avoided any overt political references to the Poland of the mid-1980s in order that the films could be marketed in other countries (Stok, 145). Yet none of this detracts from The Decalogues intellectual, moral and aesthetic stature.Kielowski is a serious artist whose last-ditch concern is integrity that of his characters and also of himself, as a filmmaker. He does not teach morality (in the guts of thou shalt not) but rather contemplates and probes lifes so-called grey areas. According to him, integrity is an extremely compound combination and we can neer ultimately say I was honest or I wasnt honest. In all our actions . . . we find ourselves in a position from which theres really no way out and even if there is, its not a better way out but only the lesser evil. This choosing which way out to take, of course, defines integrity (Stok, 146 149).The notion, then, that a set of ten rules is all we need is simplistic to the point of absurdity. The decisions we all must make in our lives are often difficult and painful they are also dependent on a host of different factors which have to be weighed and taken into account. Where morality is concerned, perspectives have to be altered and sometimes replaced with new ones. Mario Sesti suggests that the complexity of the ideas at play in The Decalogue is symbolized, in part, by the high-rise flat complex which is the central setting for all the episodes. Throughout the work a system of hints, correspondences and allusions imperceptibly laces together the compound plights of the characters who live in the same apartment block. Everyone either knows or ignores one another, but everyone is aware (however reluctantly) that they belong to the same narrative (Sesti, 183).Portman remarks that Kielowsk is signature theme in virtually all his films (not just The Decalogue) is the ineffability of human experience through chance encounters or near-encounters of protagonists whose paths would never ordinarily intersect (Portman, 2001). Locating most of the action in and some the huge apartment create where the various characters live, and where their paths occasionally cross, allows Kielowski to stage such(prenominal) chance encounters and near-encounters while (weaving the) hit episodes into an overall tapestry (Sesti, 183).The director notes that the idea of choosing characters at random and observing how they act and interrelate is tumesce-served by the apartment building setting We had the idea that the camera should pick somebody out, . . . then follow him or her throughout the rest of the film, he says, adding that since the apartment building has thousands of similar windows framed in the establishing dig, it was an ideal setting for his purposes (Stock, 146).Cunneen exp lains that the apartment building helps unify the series since we see the same few buildings once more and again (that is, from episode to episode), adding that in such a context it becomes natural for a character we see on the stairs in one episode to become a major figure in a later one (Cunneen, 2001). By extension, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the apartment building symbolizes the unity and interrelatedness of experience.Despite the interrelatedness, Michael Wilmington argues that all the characters in the series think of themselves as essentially marooned (Wilmington, 2001). Occasionally, to some minor degree, the setting shifts away from the capital of Poland suburb and into the city, and even the countryside, yet the director has a nostalgic idea of a return the monotonous high-rise blocks (Wilmington, 2001). The symbolism of the notion to portray such areas of Warsaw is that only in those tall grey buildings can the audience get familiar with some differe nt emotions of the inhabitants love, hate, friendliness, politeness, curiosity and more. There is constant interaction between the neighbors, making Kielowskis series very true to life(predicate) and simple to understand for his viewers.The apartment building is, in effect, an objective correlative to this very malaise. The deliberately blue-eyed(a) or brackish colors of the building capture an edifice that signifies both the State and the monotony of life in Peoples Poland (Porton, 2001). In a similar vein, Agnieszka Tennant makes reference to the mass-produced, colorless buildings, cheerless wintry outdoors, iciness flats and impersonal stairwells, elevators and offices that constitute the films mise-en-scne ( tenant, 2001).Another function of the apartment-building setting is that it allows for an open narrative structure a structure which invites the viewer to interpret the actions of the protagonists, to follow their struggles with destiny in an abundance of chance encounte rs (Haltof, 79), while serving as a convenient symbol for voyeurism and shifting perspectives (that is to say, the viewers as well as the directors behold). Cunneen is compensate to stress that Kielowskis camera is fond of windows, mirrors, or any objects that offer possibilities of reflections (Cunneen, 2001). This tendency opens new perspectives on the protagonists of the film series. They are viewed from behind the glass, lens or mirror which highlights that their actions could not be what they seem and have more dimensions to them.In Kielowskis films, glass serves to self-consciously foreground the act of looking, according to Annette Insdorf (Cunneen, 2001, quoting Insdorf in the latters Double Lives, p. 91). In Decalogue V, Piotr, the lawyer of Jacek the killer, is framed in a mirror before we actually see him. As well, the number one wood victim is puted as glass reflects the apartment complex and Jacek is introduced in the street, reflected in a mirror as well (Insdorf q uoted in Cunneen, 2001). Sesti refers to Kielowskis themes of uncertainty and bewilderment, noting that the most typical image in The Decalogue is a shadowy interior, a character at the window, or a scan without rancor, happiness or hope (Sesti, 187). A brass in point is Decalogue VI, which begins with Olaf, the peeping tom character, descry on Magda, the older woman who is his neighbor, but ends in reverse, with Magda spying on him. Kielowski concedes that this change in perspective is essential to the episodes structure (Stok, 169). Other examples of the gaze may be found in Decalogue I when the boy Pawel watches a pigeon on his windowsill in the beginning. Later, after Pawel drowns, his aunt watches slow-motion monument footage of him on a TV screen in a shop window. In Decalogue V the gaze is noticed during the murder of the cab driver when the killer Jacek hesitates for a brief moment when the victim looks up at him and Jacek sees his suffering he responds by covering the m ans head (Hogan, 2008). Curiously, Kielowski here seems to be equating the gaze with death.Another significant and symbolic link between the episodes is the presence of the mysterious, silent young man whom the audience sees only occasionally. He is absent from episodes 7 and 10. This omnipresent figure with searingly watchful eyes and an Old volition intensity (Cunneen, 2001) usually shows up just before a character makes a difficult ethical decision, or just before something unexpected happens (Tennant, 2001).He can be observed in Decalogue I sitting at a campfire in Decalogue V, as a road inspector and also as a painter in prison in Decalogue VI, as a man in a sporting suit in Decalogue VIII, as a student listening to the lecture of one of the two main(prenominal) characters and in Decalogue IX, as a cyclist who watches the protagonist try to kill himself. This mysterious man can be identified with a guardian angel or the walking consciousness. He is present at the times of crucial decisions by the protagonists, but he never judges. On the contrary the angel is trying to push the troubled heroes to a better moral choice, as with Jacek in Dekalogue V he shakes his head to silently protest the murder or in Dekalogue IX saving Roman from succeed in his suicidal attempt.The figure is still puzzling because he seems to have very little to no influence on the action and therefore cannot be considered a character in the proper sense. Tenant believes he symbolizes Gods presence among us, Christian conscience, or at least for a secular audience stack (Tenant, 2001), while Haltof sees him as an Angel of Fate who adds an almost metaphysical dimension to the films (Haltof, 81). As Sesti explains, although the figure never interferes with the action, he is perfectly aware of it to the point of foreseeing its conclusion. He never utters a word but rather looks directly into the camera, and his disquieting silence seems to comment on the story. Sesti agrees that t his kind of chorus figure acts as a unifying link for the episodes but points out that we do not identify with him, for his presence suggests the inflexibleness of fate and the vulnerability of every individual. . . . His gaze is the gaze of some divine figure, distressed by his inutility and by the impossibility of redeeming the world (Sesti, 184).The ambiguity and symbolic richness of the angel figure and of the apartment complex testifies to Kielowskis mastery as a filmmaker. The Decalogue does not lend itself to a reductionist reading quite an the opposite. A vast fresco of private emotions and subtle interactions (Wilmington, 2000) on the one hand, it is also a work that is rich in themes and ideas. As Wilmington observes, these themes are in fact common to all of Kielowskis films Choice is fate. distract underlies beauty. Isolation is an illusion. Disparate are we. Sin is inescapable. Soul is flesh. Film is life. The Decalogue, Kielowskis prime act of cinematic voyeurism, dr aws those go together (Wilmington, 2000). By turning to such methods as a common setting of high-rises in Warsaw and a small trace of a mystic messenger from God, Kielowski is able to unite and add viscidity to ten short films from his Dekalogue series. The films are complex and deep. They require thorough analysis and knowledge of the Biblical context. The causality is making it easier to understand for his audience by bringing in common threads to each episode and opening the conclusions for different interpretations and room for opinions.ReferencesCunneen, Joseph. Being Alive is a Gift Krzysztof Kielowskis The DecalogueSpiritus A Journal of Christian Spirituality. 11. 2001. pp. 79-85. John HopkinsUniversity Press. (Note Cunneen quotes Kielowski in the introduction to thepublished script of The Decalogue, for which, see bibliographic entry.)Cunneen, Joseph. Kieslowski on the mountaintop. Commonweal. 12414, Aug. 15,1997. reinvigorated York, N.Y., 1997. pp. 11-14Haltof, Marek. T he Cinema of Krzysztof Kielowski Variations on Destiny and Chance.Wallflower Press London. 2004. pp. 75-107.Hogan, Patrick Colm. Tragic Lives On the Incompatibility of Law and Ethics. CollegeLiterature. westernmost Chester 353, Summer 2008. 30 pp.Kielowski, Krzysztof. Introduction, in Kielowski, K. and Piesiewica, P., DecalogueThe Ten Commandments translated by Phil Cavendish and Suzanna Bluh.London Faber and Faber, 1991.Kieslowski, Krzystof and Krzysztof Piesiewicz. The Decalogue. VHS. Distributor hatful Part. 10 episodes on 5 cassettes. Directed by K. Kieslowski. 1987.Porton, Richard. The Decalogue. Cineaste. sensitive York Summer 2001. 263 pp. 48-50.Rosenbaum, Jonathan. immanent Cinema On the Necessity of Film Canons.John Hopkins University Press Baltimore. 2004. pp. 152-159.Sesti, Mario. DEKALOG 1 10. In The dark God Film and Faith. Mary LeaBrandy and Antonio Monda, eds. The Museum of Modern Art New York, N.Y.2003. pp. 183-187.Stok, Danusia, ed. Kielowski on Kielowski. Fab er and Faber Limited London, 1993.Tennant, Agnieszka. The Ten Commandments become flesh. Christianity Today.Carol Stream 452, Feb 5, 2001. pp. 75-76Michael Wilmington. Long decades journey into light. Film Comment. New York,N.Y. 362, March/April 2000. pp. 9-10