This is a series of ten shorts created for Polish Television, with plots loosely based upon the Ten Commandments, directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski. Two of these, Dekalog 5 and 6, have since been expanded into longer, feature-length films--Krotki film o zabijaniu (A Short Film About Killing) and Krotki film o milosci (A Short Film About Love), respectively. They deal with the emotional turmoil suffered by humanity, when instinctual acts and societal morality conflict.

     Dekalog 1 (Thou shalt have no other gods before Me): The life of a university teacher who trusts computers implicitly is shattered when his child falls through the ice on a lake, which had been measured as safe.

     Dekalog 2 (Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain): An elderly doctor must decide whether to deceive the pregnant, desperate young wife of a man whose cancer may be incurable.

     Dekalog 3 (Honor the Sabbath): On Christmas Eve, the onetime mistress of a now-married taxi driver (Olbrychski) takes him on a wild-goose chase through Warsaw.

     Dekalog 4 (Honor thy father and mother): An acting student who lives with her father discovers a letter from her dead mother, which may reveal long-buried family secrets about her parentage.

     Dekalog 5 (Thou shalt not kill): Best of the segments, released in expanded form as A Short Film About Killing. A seemingly psychopathic young drifter-killer from the provinces, his brutal cabdriver victim, and the lawyer who will argue the capital case in court cross paths on two days of death: the murder and the execution.

     Dekalog 6 (Thou shalt not commit adultery): Released in expanded form as A Short Film About Love. A shy young postman-milkman regularly spies through his telescope on the affairs of a promiscuous young woman (Szapalowska) across the courtyard. He falls in love; she discovers him. When, angrily, she breaks the barrier to teach him a lesson, a near-tragedy ensues.

     Dekalog 7 (Thou shalt not steal): A beautiful, melancholy young woman whose illegitimate daughter has been raised by the woman's mother as her own daughter, kidnaps and takes the child to her real father (Linda), in a desperate attempt to establish true family ties.

     Dekalog 8 (Thou shalt not bear false witness): A famous, elderly professor of ethics encounters a young Jewish woman she first met during World War II, when she refused to help hide the little girl from the Nazis.

     Dekalog 9 (Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife): A once actively philandering doctor, whose sex life has ended because of illness, becomes racked with jealousy over his wife's affair with a younger man.

      Dekalog 10 (Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods): Two brothers -- a punk rocker and a conservative family man - discover that their recently deceased father kept a fortune in stamps in his flat. As swindlers gather around them, they become obsessed with their unusual inheritance.

     For Krzysztof Kieslowski's North American followers, Decalogue has attained an almost-mythical status. Kept out of theaters because of a distribution faux pas (the North American distributor refuses to allow the films to be shown), Decalogue has rarely been screened theatrically on this side of the Atlantic. Fortunately, using a U.K. print, a North American "tour" of the production has been organized with stops in various cities in the United States and Canada, allowing audiences an opportunity to view one of the most important works of the director's career.

     There is some truth in the statement that to really understand Kieslowski, it's necessary to see Decalogue. For him, this was a transition film. Before Decalogue, the director was better known for his documentaries; only a few features -- Camera Buff, Blind Chance, and No End -- had generated international attention. After Decalogue, Kieslowski released The Double Life of Veronique, Blue, White, and Red -- all of which are regarded as exceptional pictures. Bridging these two "phases" of film making is the multi-part Decalogue, which, taken as a whole, may be the most meaningful of all that Kieslowski has brought to the screen.

     In the director's own words, he "concentrated more on what's going on inside [the characters] than what's happening on the outside." While his earlier pictures dealt with how "external circumstances and events influence people", beginning with Decalogue, Kieslowski focused on what occurs with "people who come home, lock the door on the inside and remain alone with themselves." Veronique and the Three Colors trilogy illustrate this trend more explicitly, but it first takes root here.

     Decalogue was initially produced as a series of ten 1-hour films for Polish television. Two of the episodes, parts 5 and 6, were expanded to full-length features released internationally under the titles of A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love. Each segment of Decalogue ostensibly concentrates on one of the Ten Commandments. They are, in order, "I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other God but me" (Part 1), "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" (Part 2), "Honor the Sabbath Day" (Part 3), "Honor thy father and thy mother" (Part 4), "Thou shalt not kill" (Part 5), "Thou shalt not commit adultery" (Part 6), "Thou shalt not steal" (Part 7), "Thou shalt not bear false witness" (Part 8), "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife" (Part 9), and "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods" (Part 10). In Kieslowski's opinion, "The relationship between the films and the individual Commandments [is] a tentative one. The films should be influenced by the individual Commandments to the same degree that the Commandments influence our daily lives."

     Kieslowski first envisioned Decalogue as a project to give young Polish directors their first shots at film making. He and his writing partner, Krzysztof Piesiewicz (who also co-authored No End, Veronique, and Three Colors) scripted the episodes, intending for a different director to helm each one. However, when the screenplays were complete, Kieslowski realized they were too good to hand over to someone else. In the end, he directed all ten -- completing the entire series in under a year.

     Anyone can make a movie about the Ten Commandments, but few such productions would share the subtlety and depth which characterize Kieslowski's vision. It isn't the subject matter per se that gives Decalogue its greatness -- it's the manner in which the director handles his material. For part 5, those expecting to see a morality play about the evils of killing are in for a surprise. To be sure, this episode is about murder and its ramifications, but the issues examined are far more complex, and Kieslowski shuns absolutes of good and evil.

     Many of the segments deal only peripherally with their associated Commandment, while others tackle more than one. Part 2, for example, in which a doctor's diagnosis will determine whether an unborn baby is brought to term or aborted, is intended to show one of the ways man assumes the role of God, and can be seen as a reference to either Commandment 1 or 2. Parts 6 and 9 both deal with themes of love, sexual obsession, and jealousy. Parts 7 and 10 involve thefts, albeit of radically different kinds. Parts 1, 4, and 7 grapple with issues of parenting. Part 3 has virtually nothing to do with the Sabbath, but a great deal to do with lying, while the lie of part 8 is only a jumping-off point for a far deeper ethical debate. And so it goes for all ten episodes, with multiple issues criss-crossing and weaving their way through the stories.

     Like Blue, White, and Red, each episode of the Decalogue cycle can be viewed individually. However, for those who sit through more than one, there are several connecting threads. The entire series takes place in one Polish housing complex and, as a result, various characters from certain episodes make brief appearances in others. There is one nameless man who has a cameo in nearly every segment (often carrying some bulky object). Occasionally, references are made to the plights of others -- for example, the doctor's dilemma in part 2 is debated in an ethics class in part 8.

     Each episode of Decalogue has a different tone. Part 1 starts out playful as we're introduced to a loving father and son. Part 2 is somber. Part 3, which takes place at Christmas, is suitably festive, and Kieslowski works in a few humorous moments. The focus in part 4 is kept intimate, while in part 5, which deals with capital punishment, it's very public. Part 6 is a warped romance, elements of which are later echoed in both White and Red. Part 7 is another grim episode, followed by an even more sobering part 8, about a Holocaust survivor confronting the woman who wouldn't hide her. Part 9 is a modern tragedy that ruminates about the real nature of love (it's "in one's heart, not between one's legs"), and part 10 is the closest Decalogue ever comes to being a comedy.

     Each viewer will have an opinion of which segment is the most affecting. At the screenings I attended, it seemed that every person had a different favorite. By way of illustrating the scope of the series, I'll spend a little space discussing the three I was most impressed with. Though the content of the other seven differed from these, many of the intentions were similar.

     Part One: "I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other God but me." Kieslowski has a unique take on idolatry in this segment. Instead of introducing us to worshippers of a traditional pagan god, he gives us a good Polish father who believes in fate and science, but not God. One day, when his young boy wants to go skating, he uses his computer to calculate whether the ice on a local pond is thick enough. The computer says it's safe, but the boy falls through and drowns. Decalogue 1 is crafted as an admonition to those who blindly follow any philosophy, be it religious or secular, and Kieslowski's ability to make these characters believable and sympathetic drives home the message.

     Part Four: "Honor thy father and thy mother." A young woman prematurely opens a letter addressed to her by her dead mother that was intended to be read only after the passing of her father. In the letter, it is revealed that the man who raised her is not the one who sired her. Armed with this knowledge, the daughter decides to act on long-submerged feelings to seduce him. This episode is a study of the so-called Electra complex, in which a girl is given the opportunity to act on an attraction to her father. Kieslowski carefully balances parental feelings with sexual impulses to come up with a powerful drama that questions some of the basic tenants of what it means to be a father (or mother). The ultimate resolution is the perfect ironic punctuation to all that comes before.

     Part Six: "Thou shalt not commit adultery." (Also, A Short Film About Love) Perhaps the most intriguing of all the episodes, this one confronts voyeuristic obsession. A young postal worker, Tomek, spies on a beautiful, promiscuous woman, Magda, living in the tower block opposite. After watching her from afar, he finally gets up the courage to meet her, but, by de-objectifying her, his vision of perfect love is shattered. She informs him that there's no such thing as love, only sex. This leads to a failed suicide attempt. However, by the time Tomek returns from the hospital, the circumstances have been reversed. Now, Magda is obsessed with him. Love -- or at least some degree of caring -- has awakened inside her even as it was destroyed within him. Despite the grim final act, this segment has its lighthearted moments, the most memorable of which is Tomek's reaction when Magda agrees to accompany him on a date. The episode is an invitation to speculate about the meaning of love, and the different ways people view it. It's also about disillusionment and accepting the consequences of one's actions. Had Magda been more sensitive to Tomek's feelings, she never would have been trapped by the emotions that resulted from his attempted suicide.

     Certainly, one of the many elements that makes Decalogue so powerful is that, among the dozens of primary actors, there are no inadequate performances. Every character is portrayed naturally, and each story unfolds without uneven acting creating a question of authenticity. For those familiar with other Kieslowski films, there are several recognizable faces. Zbigniew Zamachowski, who starred White, plays a lead in part 10. Jerzy Stuhr, from Camera Buff and White, is also in the same segment. Janusz Gajos, from White, is the father in part 4. And Grazyna Szapolowska, Magda in part 6, also appeared in No End.

     Throughout the history of film, there has been a select group of standout pictures -- movies that, for technical or artistic reasons, have made an indelible imprint on viewers. Taken as one ten-hour exploration of the human experience, Decalogue is deserving of a place in that unique cadre of films, alongside such undisputed classics as Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, Last Tango in Paris, The Godfather, Fanny and Alexander, and Schindler's List (to name a few). Make no mistake -- ten hours is a long time to watch a movie -- but Decalogue's drama is never boring (not that I'd recommend viewing the whole thing in a single, uninterrupted chunk). This is the product of a expert storyteller/filmmaker at the height of his craft, creating a masterwork the likes of which comes along only once in a great while. There is no other motion picture out there like Decalogue, which makes it more the pity how difficult it is to hunt down in North America. But, for those who take the trouble, the payoff is more than worth the effort.

     The Ten Commandments, exact and uncompromising, literally cast in stone, continues to provide a source of moral conflict in contemporary society. In the ten part epic masterpiece, "Decalogue", Krzysztof Kieslowski examines the dilemma of fundamental sin in the lives of ordinary Warsaw citizens. A physicist (Henryk Baranowski) puts his faith in science and logic to govern daily life (I). A violinist (Krystyna Janda), unable to decide between her husband and her lover, defers the impossible decision to her husband's attending physician (Aleksander Bardini) (II). A lonely woman (Maria Pakulnis) imposes on an ex-lover (Daniel Olbrychski) on Christmas Eve to search for her missing lover (III). An acting student (Adrianna Biedrzynska) discovers an ominous letter from her father (Janusz Gajos) (IV). A cruel young man (Miroslaw Baka) wanders through the streets in search of a random victim (V). A young postal clerk (Olaf Linde Lubaszenko) falls in love with a neighboring artist (Grazyna Szapolowska) whom he admires from a distance (VI). A struggling student (Maja Barelkowska) kidnaps her biological daughter (Katarzyna Piwowarczyk) (VII). An ethics professor (Maria Koscialkowska) is confronted with the culpability of her actions when asked to harbor a Jewish girl during World War II (VIII). A married couple (Piotr Machalica and Ewa Blaszczyk) learn to deal with the husband's impotence (IX). Two brothers (Zbigniew Zamachowski and Jerzy Stuhr) inherit their father's priceless stamp collection (X).

     Defined as Kieslowski's experimental, transitional work for Polish television, "Decalogue" is, in itself, a monumental achievement: a remarkable examination of moral tale colliding, and often yielding, against the bounds of human frailty. Kieslowski crafts each episode with a distinctive signature, creating serenely indelible, spare, and poetic imagery: the dripping of candle wax against the icon of the Virgin Mary in Decalogue I; the point source lighting of Decalogue IV; the raw, monochromatic presentation (using sepia overlay) of Decalogue V; the saturation of colors in Decalogue VI; the perversion of physical exercise as self-punishment in Decalogue IX. Throughout the film, a ubiquitous, enigmatic man serves as a silent witness to the moral fissure, but remains uninvolved--a chronicler of humanity, an omniscient presence who does not pass judgment. Invariably, "Decalogue" proves to be a testament for the venerable director as well, a profound observation on the trials and tribulations of everyday life, reflected in complex ways--direct and abstruse--but all fundamentally, and infallibly, human.