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Parts V & VI | Parts VII & VIII | Parts IV & X
Long Summer's Journey Through
"Decalogue"
[July 28: Parts V and VI]
By Matthew Prins
I am, at heart, a cinematic contrarian. By that, I don't
mean that the films I like aren't critically acclaimed;
almost all the films that make my top ten lists have wide,
if not usually universal, critical support. But the
biggies -- the films that make every American film reviewer
worth his weight in reels stand up and sing praises to W.K.
Laurie Dickson -- usually leave me, at best, only faintly
pleased [1]. I thought "American Beauty" was overdramatic
and much less profound than it believed it was. I'll still
argue that "Shakespeare in Love" wasn't much better than
"Notting Hill" and "Runaway Bride," the blockbuster
romantic comedies of that same year. I was mildly bored
through most of "L.A. Confidential," and I was distressed
over the film's inappropriate denouement. And going back
even further, "Fargo," "Leaving Las Vegas," and "Forrest
Gump" didn't fare much better in my critical judgement [2].
So I suppose it's only appropriate that "Decalogue, Five,"
perhaps the most acclaimed segment of perhaps the most
acclaimed film [3] of the 1980s, left me, well, just a
little bit above faintly pleased. It's not a bad segment.
It fits well thematically: the commandment discussed is
"Thou shall not murder," and the film is about the
senseless killing of a taxi driver followed by the capital
punishment killing of the murderer. The acting is
typically superb in the naturalistic way all of "Decalogue"
is acted, and the cinematography is perhaps the best in the
series.
But I think that Kieslowski and screenwriter Krzysztof
Piesiewicz took the easy way out in the episode, as odd as
it may seem to say that in an hour as harrowing as
"Decalogue, Five." The judgement the audience has to make
at the end -- whether the murderer should be hanged or not
for his crimes -- is made much easier by Kieslowski because
he not only makes the murderer look sympathetic, Kieslowski
also gives the killer an out by suggesting he wouldn't have
committed the crime had his childhood been less traumatic.
Problems before adulthood are probably common occurrences
for many defendants in capital cases. Nurture does play a
large role in whom we become as adults, and a tragedy
during childhood can lead to a dysfunctional adulthood.
But if Kieslowski is attempting to expose the death penalty
as inherently sinful, this is the wrong way to do it.
Think back a couple years to the well-publicized execution
of Karla Faye Tucker in Texas. Tucker brutally killed two
people in 1983, and a court sentenced her to be executed
for her crimes. There was no doubt about Tucker's guilt.
But because Tucker seemed truly repentant of her crimes,
and because she had become a born-again Christian, and
because it took her 15 years to get from sentencing to
execution, and perhaps even because she was a woman, many
evangelical Christians -- even those for retaining
the American death penalty -- argued for her sentence to be commuted.
Now. Can Tucker's case be made into a strong argument
against the death penalty? Not really. The most one can
argue from that case is in that situation, Tucker's
sentence should have been commuted. No one else's: just
Tucker's. Tucker's case is so far removed from what
Americans consider the quintessential death row inmate -- a
big, black, male druggie with not an ounce of remorse --
that any conclusions they may make on Tucker's situation
have no relevance to the larger issue. It's the same with
Kieslowski's killer: the murderer becomes so sympathetic
that the audience thinks, "Well, I don't want him
killed because he seems so sad and pitiable, but those
really bad guys, they should still die."
I guess Kieslowski made the killer seem pitiable because
that made the murderer's death even more crushing. But the
progression of events makes me believe that Kieslowski
wants the audience to go one step further and denounce the
death penalty. By making the killer more "human,"
Kieslowski actually defeats that purpose by forcing his
audience to move from the general to the specific and only
focusing on the wrong done against one man. Usually,
filmmakers should be focusing on specifics rather than
generalities; in this case, if I am right about
Kieslowski's motives, it was the exact wrong decision for
him to make.
As a staunch death-penalty foe [4], I can think of three
ways films can avoid this problem. First, a film could
show innocent victims of the death penalty and argue that
even one wrongly executed person taints the system; the
reaction could still be the same as the reaction to
Tucker's execution, though: "Of course I don't want to see
someone innocent die, but the guilty ones, well, yeah."
Besides, lately that angle's been used to dea ... um, used a
lot. Second, a film could attempt to show that all of
these death row inmates are "sad and pitiable"; the
audience comes up with one counter-example, though, and you
can forget that little idea.
And then there's the plan I like, the direction I wish
"Decalogue, Five" would have gone. Imagine this: a man
commits a horrific crime. He is a horrible, vile creature.
He is arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. He
shows no remorse, had a loving family as a child, and is
sad only because he is going to die. And the government
kills him, and it is still awful. Would it be possible to
create a film that could effectively argue against capital
punishment by using a undeniably amoral human being as the
subject? I don't know. But I'd truly like to see the
attempt. [5]
[1] Given that information, answer me this: was it
intelligent for me to decide to spend six weeks reviewing
segments from a 10-hour film as critically acclaimed as
"Decalogue" without having seen even one episode of it?
Nay, fair friend. Nay.
[2] Not that I dislike every film that falls into that
category. I love "Breaking the Waves," "Secrets and Lies,"
and "Pulp Fiction," just to name a few, but those are less
common that the "masterpieces" I'm only lukewarm on.
[3] You know what I hate about writing this series? I can
never make up my mind on how I want to refer to "Decalogue"
as a whole or, say, an individual piece like "Decalogue,
One." Sometimes I call "Decalogue" a film and sometimes a
series. Sometimes I call "Decalogue, One" a film,
sometimes I call it an episode, and sometimes I call it a
segment. It's all very confusing, and I should have
standardized my word selection before I started this
project.
[4] And I think this would be the perfect time to mention
that my beliefs on the death penalty do not necessarily
parallel those of Steve Lansingh or JoyOfMovies.com. My
beliefs on movies don't necessarily, either, in case you're
curious.
[5] Oh gosh. I've just spent up all my words talking about
"Decalogue, Five," and I haven't even mentioned "Decalogue,
Six" yet. Um, most of what I wrote about Kieslowski's
portrayal of sexuality in last week's article still holds,
although "Decalogue, Six" is less about lying than it is
about what causes the start and stoppage of love and how it
is that when we get what we want, we often don't want it
any more. It's a good episode, and if someone asks me to
expand on these comments on the message board, I
just might. [6]
[6] And no, I really don't know why I've been using
footnotes in these "Decalogue" articles.