[CYCLE] THE DECALOGUE – 3 : You keep the Lord’s day

On the occasion of the re-release in restored version of the ten parts of the DECALOGUE of Kieslowski distributed by Diaphana, back on one of the works of the founders of cinema is the european post-Walesa, a monument of ten hours made by one of the greatest directors of his time. Box of various themes and navigating between the social and the religion, we chroniquerons the entirety of the episodes, four hands, with each day a new article. Study on a case-by-case basis within a follow-up analysis more broad : we find the author behind the quilt, the thought behind the human drama.

The Decalogue 1
The Decalogue 2
The Decalogue 3

The Decalogue 4
The Decalogue 5
The Decalogue 6

The Decalogue 7
The Decalogue 8
The Decalogue 9

The Decalogue 10

This is the third episode of the cycle sum of Kieslowski takes place during the night of Christmas. The episode opens with Janusz in the disguise of Saint Nicolas in his car and prepares to go spoiling her children with gifts. From the street to his apartment, he encounters a drunk and singing, at the entrance of the building, the father, exhausted by the grief of the first episode. This film, like the following, create close links with the characters of the other nine, supporting the networks that trace the series.

THE DECALOGUE 3 – honor the Lord’s day

After gifts, Janusz attends the Christmas mass with his family. And there, in this framework, which enshrines the communion and sanctifies the family unit, in this gesture slyly profane that characterizes the series, the father of the family saw a woman with which something happens. The scenarios of each episode are intelligent and mysterious that it does not show anyone from the outset, the ties that bind the protagonists. This can cause ambiguities désarmantes like in episode 4. In this case, we will learn, in half-words, much later, that the woman cross to the church, is none other than a former mistress of Janusz.

“The scenarios of each episode are intelligent and mysterious that they don’t show anyone from the outset, the ties that bind the protagonists”

Janusz, attaches sentimental, is going to spend the whole night with Ewa, his ex-mistress, to help find her husband drunk. This context, where two old lovers get together in infidelity, the “day of the Lord”, allows Kieslowski to deploy its sense of close-ups and silences, in contrast with the music stripped of Preisner. This episode is very strange to the eyes of others. Made of wanderings, of mysteries in relationships and with a look unobtrusively fantastic, it is one of the most successful jumping out of naturalism, and a fascinating suspension issues.

Filming in the manner of the documentary, the faces caught up in their jewel box of lights take on a supernatural dimension. All the processes of audio-visuals which are usually banned of the tv and are then celebrated. The tv movies are rather customary of a photograph has been sanitized, rendered with the clarity fade colors. However, the filmmaker and the chief operator image of this episode are opting for an invasion of color to the surface (faces, props, materials). Green reached through the computer screen of the first episode, replaced the red of Christmas lights, from a color popular passion with a tint of heat adulterous or deadly.

“This episode is very strange to the eyes of others. It is one of the most successful jumping out of naturalism, and a fascinating suspension issues”

The commandment that refers to this episode does not appear clearly. It could just as well be “You shall not covet the woman of others” or “You shall not covet the possessions of others”. Always in this principle to produce a maëlstorm general, Kieslowski and his screenwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz, succeed to avoid the movie thesis by freeing the plot of the whole issue open-ended. This is not a problem given the existence that is approached, but a gesture of life, a movement of destiny which is sketched, sealed around a human condition more or less marked.

And in this apparent chronic, a few observations jump-succeed in breaking into the Polish society to the end of the soviet bloc. Violence underground that appears in the detox centre, where the master of the house appears as an anti-semitic smoldering, and filled with violence, filth. The law lenient, and lenient police officers also accuse the justice gentle of men, the opposite of the other, invisible (divine ?), much more cruel. Under the cover of a dive benign in the daily life of an old couple of lovers (what could be more banal ?), Kieslowski succeeds in brushing watermark a pan of his country. Placed end-to-end with the other episodes, appears a banner symbolic of the Poland of the late 80s and the human tragedy in its universality.

Flavien Poncet

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INFORMATION

• Original title : Jeden Dekalog

• Realization : Krzysztof Kieslowski

• Scenario : Krzysztof Kieslowski

• Main actors : Maja Komorowska, Wojciech Klata, Henryk Baranowski

• Country of origin : Poland

• Output EN : June 29, 2016

• Output POL: 1988

• Duration : 10 parts of 50 min

• Distributor : Diaphana Distribution