Cinema
The Decalogue
Dekalog
Krzysztof Kieślowski · 1989
Synopsis
Ten independent stories, each freely inspired by one of the Ten Commandments, all set in the same large housing complex in Warsaw. Ordinary residents, a father and his son, a doctor, a taxi driver, a young woman and a teenager who spies on her, two brothers, each face a moral choice on which the lives of others depend, and some characters move from one story to another.
Context
Produced by Polish Television and the Tor group, with Sender Freies Berlin, to a score by Zbigniew Preisner, the series originated in an idea of its co-screenwriter, the lawyer Krzysztof Piesiewicz, who had been struck by a fifteenth-century work illustrating the commandments. It consists of ten films of about an hour each, shot with a different cinematographer for almost every episode. Presented at Venice in September 1989, it was broadcast on Polish television from 10 December 1989 to 29 June 1990; two episodes had a longer version for the cinema.
Who it is for
Ten films of about an hour each, in Polish; each can be watched separately, in whatever order one likes.
Prizes and reception
International Critics' Prize at Venice in 1989, and the work of Polish cinema most studied by critics and scholars.
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