Dekalog 1 + 2

Krzysztof Kieślowski: Dekalog 1 + 2

First and second parts of Kieslowski’s monumental TV seriesDekalog, about the Ten Commandments. In the first part, a computer calculates that it is safe to skate on a frozen lake, with disastrous consequences. In the second part, a doctor receives a complex request.

In all episodes of theDekalog series, the characters become entangled by chance in circumstances that hold them hostage. Their lives are pale – the ten episodes are set amongst the grey concrete of a typical Polish suburb – and so is their future: higher powers seem to hold them in their grasp; any sense of ethics is present only in the background.

Kieslowski screened the series in its entirety at the Venice film festival (1989). An incredible achievement, especially during the turbulent times following the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Communist leaders were being forced to allow free elections.

Programme

Dekalog 1
Warsaw, shortly before Christmas. A professor and his young son have great faith in fast computers and mathematical calculations. When the boy wants to skate on a lake and his father calculates the thickness of the ice using formulas, a catastrophe ensues. A film about the false belief in everything being measurable and the deceptive certainty of rationality.
Dekalog 2
Kieslowski tells the story of a terminally ill cancer patient and his wife, who has become pregnant by another man. If her husband dies, she wants to keep the child; if he lives, she will have an abortion. Everything depends on the specialist’s diagnosis. Or does it? His reply is a matter of human life or death. Should he play god?

This is part of

De films van Kieślowski

Special screenings

Dekalog 3 + 4

Dekalog 5 + 6

Dekalog 7 + 8

Director

Krzysztof Kieślowski

Production year

1988

Length

110 min.

Country

Language

Polish

Subtitles

English

Part of

De films van Kieślowski

Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski broke through internationally with his ten-part series Dekalog, which examined the meaning of the Ten Commandments for modern humans.

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