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Long Summer's Journey Through
"Decalogue"
[June 23: The Overview]
By Matthew Prins
Consider this counterprogramming against the summer
blockbusters. For the next six Fridays (June 30th through
August 11th), I will be leading you on a journey through
"Decalogue," a 10-hour [1] Polish miniseries assiduous
with ... hey, get your cursor away from that left-pointing
arrow!
Perhaps some facts will allure those unfamiliar with the
film. "Decalogue" was directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski,
best known in North America for his "Three Colors Trilogy"
that contained the acclaimed films, "Red," "White," and
"Blue" [2]. "Decalogue" is considered his masterwork, but
it was never released in North America because of
distribution problems; only in the past two months has it
finally been released here on video. "Decalogue" is
considered by many film critics to be the seminal work of
film in the 1980s, and some even consider it one of the ten
best works created during the first century of cinema.
The concept of the film should be intriguing to those
sympathetic to JoyOfMovies.com's religious persuasion:
"Decalogue" is made up of ten segments that each tells a
story based loosely on one of the Ten Commandments. For
example, there is "Decalogue, One," which is based on the
commandment, "Thou shalt have no other God but Me"; it is
about a man and his son who use science to understand the
workings of the world, and then science fails them both
horribly.
And then there's ... no. I should not continue at this point.
But if you are charmed by my description, I invite you to
join in my series, "Long Summer's Journey Through
Decalogue." On June 30th I will start by discussing the
first two segments in Decalogue, availible on one tape [3]
at your local video store [4]. I invite you to chime in
with your thoughts, your experiences, and your revelations
with "Decalogue" throughout the summer. You can e-mail
them to me at mdprins@yahoo.com or
you can respond to the reviews as they are posted here at
JoyOfMovies.com.
I'm excited about this. I hope some of you are, too.
[1] Hey, look. I wanted to see either this or the
450-minute black-and-white Hungarian film "Sátántangó," but
I don't think "Sátántangó" has been released on video yet.
Go figure.
[2] I highly recommend "Red" and "Blue," although neither
is as immediately accessible as the three segments I've
seen thus far in "Decalogue." And "White"? Eh, except for
The Moment: the fade to white.
[3] There are two segments are on each video tape, and five
segments are on each DVD disk. I'm watching them on video
two at a time, so that's the way we're going to be
discussing them. My apologies to technological
trailblazers.
[4] Don't bother with the chains; I finally found copies to
rent at a locally owned artsy video store. So if you're in
the Richmond area, I can help you out; otherwise, you're on
your own trying to find it.