Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski

Summary: Parts six to ten of a ten part series made for Polish television. Each programme focuses on the inhabitants of an apartment block and the ethical dilemmas that they face each day. Polish dialogue with subtitles.

One of the greatest and most ambitious cinematic achievements, Krzysztof Kieslowski's THE DECALOG consists of 10 short films inspired by the Ten Commandments. Each film takes place in and around the same area of late-20th-century Warsaw, provoking timeless ethical and moral questions for this era. Specifically, the films address personal issues dealing with family, friends, love, life, and death. Winner of awards from the Venice, Sao Paulo, and Cannes film festivals and originally made for Polish television, Kieslowski's masterwork has been screened all over the world to international acclaim. The video release will give viewers the opportunity to revisit each episode and discover characters from the other films that pop up in the background of the current story and might also help to better explain the mysterious presence of Artur Barcis, a quiet onlooker who might be an angel or a devil. Kieslowski, collaborating with cowriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz, has made a series of films that feel small and intimate yet are actually epic commentaries on modern human existence, making THE DECALOG a lasting work of art. Includes episodes 6 through 10, see also DECALOG 1-5.

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The double-disc set Dekalog, Parts 6-10, contains the last five of Kieslowski's 10 one-hour modern morality tales, each one loosely linked to one of the 10 Commandments. All set in and around the same drab, high-rise Warsaw housing estate, they intriguingly explore moral dilemmas without ever coming to any glib conclusions. As always, Kieslowski is far more interested in posing questions than in supplying answers. The series was originally made for Polish television, and has since been shown on TV stations all round the world, though never in the cinema. While they can easily be watched separately, being individual stories, there's no question that they gain in impact from being taken in conjunction with each other.

Kieslowski used a different cinematographer for each film (except Nos. 3 and 9, both photographed by Piotr Sobocinski) to give a distinct feel to each story. While none of them--as you might expect from this director--offer a barrel of laughs, some are decidedly lighter in tone. Indeed the series ends on an almost farcical note: Dekalog 10 tells the tale of two brothers seized with paranoia when their late father leaves them a valuable stamp collection. By contrast, Dekalog 6 is one of the most moving and compassionate in the collection: a woman who finds a young lad is obsessively spying on her inflicts an intolerable humiliation on him. This, like No. 5 in the series, was expanded by 25 minutes or so into a feature film, A Short Film about Love. Here too, it seems a pity that the longer version couldn't have been included in the set.

On the DVDs:Dekalog, Parts 1-6 is slightly better served for extras than the first set; this includes a 50-minute interview with Kieslowski, one of the last he gave before his early death. As usual, he stonewalls all the questions with barely concealed impatience. The transfer captures the muted colours of the original, and the Dolby 1.0 sound is crisp and clear. --Philip Kemp

Main Language:	Polish
Region:	Region 0
Special Features:	Documentary - 1. A Short Film About Dekalog, 2. Interview with Krzystof Kieslowski
Subtitles:	English
Year:	1988
Release Date:	May 27, 2002
Runtime:	277 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	A R T024 B D V D
Keywords:	Subtitled, General, Parts, Ten, Commandments, Polish, Part, Drama, Dekalog, Decalogue
Genre:	Drama