The first episode opens with a pan flute melody by Zbiegniew Preisner, on the edge of a central pond for the history to come, to a mysterious face by the fireside. This diaphanous gaze is that of a young man (Artur Barcis), who will appear in each segment, a silent presence, an impassive witness, occupying various functions, practicing several hobbies. Through the intersection of many personal stories, The Decalogue breaks the illusion of a queen subjectivity.
This witness, present in times of dilemmas, the appearance of which precedes
the rarer but possible moral transgressions or decisions to do "what is
right" reinforces this feeling of objectivity. There is
"something" and "someone else" outside the minds of people
in turmoil. Hence the ethical issue on which Kieślowski insists: “If I had to
convey the essential message of the Decalogue, it would be: 'Live with respect,
look around you, take care that your actions do not cause harm to others, do
not hurt them or cause them pain”. In Coffret Le Décalogue, Potemkine
The first segment is freely related to idolatry, first personified by a professor whose materialism corresponds to the state ideology promoted in Poland before the fall of the Wall. Krysztof (Henryk Baranowski), father of young Pawel (Wojciech Klata), is a convinced rationalist, adept at calculation, confident in the measure of everything. He passed on to his intellectually promising son a taste for chess and computer science. Whether the game leaving no room for chance, the digital universe of 1’s and 0’s.
He brings up the boy alone, assisted when he is absent for professional reasons from an aunt (Maja Komorowska), she a Catholic, admirer of the Pope John Paul II (images of which will return throughout the series). Him, does not believe in soul, describes existence in biological terms. She does, however, hope for something beyond bodily death. Pawel is confused. His computer responds, but it wouldn’t occur to him to give him a soul. What sets them apart? If something really does? So what, in humans, is this problematic residue of existence that Ryle referred to as the ghost in the machine?
One evening, when they are both heated by the checkmate imposed jointly on a tough player, Pawel asks his father back home if he can, the next day, in his absence, go skating on the nearby pond. His father calculates the predicted ice mass by computer and deduces the risk-free activity. He gives him his consent.
The series therefore begins with the scandal of the death of a child. Others will appear throughout it, often treated unfairly, revealing in the process, the formidable director, such as Kiarostami, Kieślowski was with the little actors. By a miscalculation with tragic consequences, he questions the human factor. The one that still prevents, as the father observes at a conference, a computer from translating a work by restoring its meaning and not grammatical or vocabulary accuracy.
This fault, resulting in repentance in a church, puts this segment at risk of schematism (after all, if he had not been wrong in the information to be weighed, his calculation would have held up - he sins by inattention and pride, not out of rationality). Fortunately, the subject is more complex. If the unbeliever fails to protect his son, the aunt's faith, stunned by the accident, does not provide her with any security either. Devotion, both material and spiritual, leads identically to a dead end. It is in themselves that men and women should gain confidence here.
Tinted, of course, with a
background of Catholicism which permeates his vision such as the ink stain permeating
the work of the professor, Kieślowski's humanism admits no submission to a
judgment decreed by others than himself.
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