Dekalog - The Ten Commandments - Part 1-5 [VHS] [1988]

All the works concern various individual and overlapping lives on a vast Polish housing estate, and are filmed in colour which seems to have been drained of all but the most sombre hues. The theme of each film is drawn loosely from the ten comandments and explores what those imperatives might mean in a modern context. There is a profound sense of locality, with the films growing out of specifically Polish experience, yet never seeming parochial. Seen through Kieslowski's lense that vast housing complex really does become an entire world. The most famous of the series are those which gained independent release as "A short film about Killing" and "A short film about Love", but make no mistake, the quality of all the works is uniformly high.

Anyone who has come to know Kieslowski's work through later films such as "The Double Life of Veronique" or the "Three Colours Trilogy", might be surprised by the absences of beautiful effects and flights of poetic fancy. These are not films which offer the comforts or almost mystical catharsis of his last works. Instead they turn an unflinching gaze on some ordinary lives, focussing on the meanness, solitude and quiet desperation of ordinary people, but by doing so they ultimately offer moments of redemption and humanity which put them into the same rank as the later portraits of Rembrandt. These are films to return to again and again. If you let them they will get under your skin and allow you to see the world with a "Kieslowskian eye", not necessarily a seductive or beautiful vision, but one which has a richenss beyond virtually any western art (not simply cinema)of the last twenty to thirty years. In the long run it is with these films that the greatness of the director will come to be understood, rather than on the more self-conscious works which gained him a wider audience in the west.

Essential if you want to understand the state of humanity in late twentieth century Europe

The symbolism relating to each of the Commandments is never shoved in the viewers face, and it is never "preachy": indeed it often requires serious thought after watching each piece to realise that Kieslowski has neatly turned each one on its head. Similarly to the Three Colours trilogy, the same characters appear in cameo roles outwith their own piece. This is not a cheery number, but it is a beautifully crafted and attention grabbing work. The haunting music from Preisner enhances the photography and direction, as in Kieslowski's other works, and it works particularly well in my favourite of the five films in this set, Thou Shalt Have no other God but me.

It may sound like a cliche, but this is a video which will exercise your grey matter, and have you thinking about it long after you've taken the tape out of the video machine. All I can do is to urge you to buy this, because you won't regret it!