Willie Mears: Post 3ish

The first film by Kieslowski, Decalogue One, was very thought provoking and had the classic ‘ah-hah’ moment when it ended. Knowing ahead of time the subject of the film, the first commandment, I was scanning constantly to find the connection, and although I knew the relation the father had to the son was going to play a key role, I had no idea how. The visuals of the film works as Midrash to bridge the gap of understanding. I found this to be most evident in the father’s relationship to the son, showing better how God loves people as his children. The father loved his son well, but not in an overbearing way. I was surprised at the amount of freedom the father gave his son, letting him go ice-skating alone (after he checked the ice, of course), letting him stay home alone, and allowing him to be in the back of his class while he was instructing. This bridges the gap of understanding for me because it is a clear picture of God’s relationship to man, even though the father gave his son freedom did that mean that he loved him any less? By no means! The father loved his son so much that he did give him that freedom. Another interesting idea was in the father’s dependence on creations of man i.e. computers and mathematical formulas. He depended upon those to such an extent that he trusted his son’s life with them, after calculating the weight the ice was capable of holding, however in the end the formulas failed him. In the same fashion the father put much trust into his computer, however in the end when his son was gone the computer did nothing for him, his idols did not satisfy him, they were not living water.
Kieslowski uses all of these visuals to connect emotionally with the viewer, and in doing so, effectively communicate that if, as men, we put our faith into anything manmade i.e. technology, it will always fall short. The father’s life seemed to be in order, however when his son was taken from him, he quickly learned that everything else he had was meaningless compared to him.
In Decalogue Six we are told by God not to commit murder, and in his film Kieslowski shows that there is little difference between a premeditated murder in cold blood, and murder in carrying out a legal death sentence. Kieslowski does this by showing the entirety of a murder, trial, and execution of the murder. Cleverly, Kieslowski portrays the killer as an evil person, although he gives him some senses of morality, as when he plays with the children outside the window, overall the killer is seen as an evil man. Up until he himself is about to be killed via the death penalty the viewer is hoping he receives just that. As he strangles the cab driver, beats him on the head, then eventually bashes his skull in with a rock, the young killer seems to have no mercy in himself whatsoever. The tables’ turn however when the killer is about to be killed him, via the death penalty, as he talks to his lawyer about his past he is given a personality, made a human, and simultaneously the viewer begins to have mercy on him. This continues until he is eventually killed at the end, the film ends with the killers lawyer driving to a spot the killer mentioned had sentimental value to him, and yelling, “I abhor it!” out the window of his car. Him doing that shows that, in the end, there is no difference between murders, whether it is in cold blood, or after a trial. Kieslowski shows that by mirroring events that took place in each murder. In each case, the victim was killed by rope, done with premeditated thought, however one is acceptable and one horrifies others. Kieslowski’s film raises the question of why the two murders are viewed so differently, in the end the action is the same.