Dekalog four : Krzysztof Kieślowski Mini Serie review

    Décalogue returns, in the words of its author, to "doubt with certainty", this fourth episode pushes the process to its last entrenchments. It is the validity of a filiation which is questioned here. Dekalog four, first questions the obedience of a child to the posthumous wish of his mother (whom she hides after his death a letter that his father has since hidden from him), then the link himself connecting this girl to his father. The lifting of the incest taboo, which they contemplate but refuse to cross, marking the reaffirmation of a kinship relationship. Anka (Adrianna Biedrzyńska), aspiring actress, lives under the same roof as her father, Michal (Janusz Gajos), with whom she maintains a bond, not unrelated to her difficulties in engaging emotionally, an erotic frigidity with her partner , another student from the Conservatory.

While on a business trip from the father, Anka inadvertently discovers a letter addressed to her that had been hidden from her. She hesitates whether to open it or not. She guesses what's hiding there anyway. Refusing to read it, however, she makes believe, on Michal's return, to have done so. This shared lack of inheritance, obscured by adults, now being brought to light, does Anka still consider herself Michal's daughter? From a slap to hugs, explanations (minimal) to drunkenness, before the resumption of a morning ritual, the film leads to a phlegmatic bonfire affirming a small victory of minds and affects over the appetite of bodies and the supremacy of genes.

Starting from a painful story, Kieślowski shows a certain generosity. The recurring angelic figure appears here twice, in two occurrences where decency then kindness respectively triumph in extremis. Why load the carried boat? The filmmaker offers here a look quite the opposite of Anka's mentor, a director practicing the ultra-directive that Kieślowski condemns (he who was known to leave his actors very free of their movements), ordering him to simulate an affection, without  understanding herself her motivations ("We can love anyone") when he, precisely, does not impose this affection (love appears here as a real but fragile faculty, determined by the complexes maintained regard to formative figures).

It is the quiet subversion of this segment, challenging the order to love. Because what value would a donation operated under duress? What would an honor earned by deception and admonition be worth? The honor flouted is not only that of the father, but of the daughter kept in ignorance, a precarious status imposed by her parents, who are not gods or saints.