Capital Celluloid 2014 - Day 337: Fri Dec 5

The Decalogue 5 & 6 (Kieslowski, 1989): ICA Cinema, 6.15pm

Here is the ICA introduction:
The ICA is celebrating the 25th anniversary of Krzysztof Kieślowski's 1989 masterpiece The Decalogue (Dekalog) with a complete retrospective. The Decalogue is a renowned Polish television drama series directed by Kieślowski and co-written with Krzysztof Piesiewicz, with music by Zbigniew Preisner. It consists of ten one-hour films, inspired by the Ten Commandments.

Kieślowski's works are meditative, often melancholic in tone, expressionist in technique, and tackle themes of identity and what it means to be at once connected and isolated. The Decalogue is a work that reflects the instability and ongoing transformation of an individual’s life. It's an examination of the emotions upon which life itself is built: emotions which are the driving force behind all our decisions, choices, mistakes and sins.

This retrospective is not only a journey through The Decalogue series but also presents some of Kieślowski’s first documentaries and other pivotal yet lesser known films.

The Decalogue 5 follows what unfolds when a young man murders a taxi driver. An expanded cinema version of this episode was also released under the title A Short Film About Killing (screening on 7 December). This episode is designed to challenge our sense of being estranged from evil.

The Decalogue 6 is an engaging psychological love story about Tomek, a shy young man who is in love with Magda, an older woman who lives in the building opposite his. This has been hailed as the episode which perfectly synthesizes Kieslowski’s paradoxical view that everything can be simultaneously beautiful and ugly, or reassuring and awkward, in regards to human interactions and emotions.

Here (and above) is an extract from Decalogue 6.