Word: krzysztof
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...DECALOGUE A decade ago, Krzysztof Kieslowski made his 10-part cycle of short films, which dramatize the Ten Commandments in modern Poland. In their scope, wit, power and ethical poignancy, they stand even taller today. The series, available in some video stores, still has not achieved U.S. release--a high crime against high artistry...
...less comforting (read Republican) vision, Clinton can examine the "Decalogue", Krzysztof Kieslowski's ten-hour, brilliantly dark retelling of each of the commandments. Poland never looked more beautiful, even if watching all ten earnest hours seems more than a little dutiful. But -- careful, Bill -- don't look to close, not at a series that has segments with titles like "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery...
...like all the other behemoths clogging your local 'plex. But every once in a while a unique film work appears on one screen as a lonely reminder of what cinema can summon in intelligence, scope and power. That would be Decalogue, the 10-part cycle of short films that Krzysztof Kieslowski made for Polish TV in 1988-89. Long withheld from U.S. distribution, the series will be shown this week at Manhattan's Walter Reade Theater. A cinephile's fondest hope is that the series will soon travel to other venues or be released on videocassette. And not a moment...
Kieslowski and his gifted screenwriting colleague, Krzysztof Piesiewicz, knew that drama begins with the human face; it is a sponge for the viewer's emotional complicity. So the camera takes closeup mug shots of faces in love or anxiety. Or it crouches furtively, behind a tree, in a closet like a fretful nephew or an avid voyeur. It watches ordinary people (including some of the most beautiful actresses in Europe) tangling with moral demons, holding on to what they were taught to believe or--this being real life in Poland just after martial law--what they have learned to settle...
...What if? trick. It has inspired such evocative works as Alan Ayckbourn's play Intimate Exchanges (a woman has, or doesn't have, a cigarette, and her choice leads to 16 variations) and Krzysztof Kieslowski's film Blind Chance (a man runs for a train and heads into three different realities). In writer-director Peter Howitt's version, the Helen who makes the train home finds her beau Gerry (John Lynch) in bed with his old girlfriend (Jeanne Tripplehorn); the Helen who misses the train gets mugged. And in both cases she meets a seemingly nice fellow, James (John Hannah...