Available now on DVD/ Blu-Ray

Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski was a master of cinema. His Three Colours Trilogy won numerous awards and The Double Life of Veronique is a highly regarded classic. With Dekalog the auteur took on the mammoth challenge of directing 10 different one hour long television dramas, in which each episode takes one of the Ten Commandments as their main theme. With the recent rise of Netflix and big budget television serials this may not seem like a great achievement, but in 1989 the feat underlined Kieślowski’s skills as a storyteller and added to his visionary status. Dekalog was made on a small budget and with a cast of mostly unknown actors. It is a great cinematic accomplishment with all 10 different chapters standing on their own.

Each of the ten stories are given the name Dekalog: One, Dekalog: Two, etc. All the episodes are separate scenarios, but similarities in location (a housing estate in Warsaw) and characters (several appear in the background in the stories that they are not the focus of) gives the feeling that the drama’s are playing out in parallel. In Dekalog: One an inquisitive child, who lives with his father, uses a computer to solve complex equations. The story however, ends in tragedy when a miscalculation inspires the child to venture out into the unknown.

Dekalog: Two revolves around the uncertainty of an unfaithful violinist. She is pregnant with another man’s child, while her husband lies in a coma. She has the achingly difficult decision of aborting the pregnancy or keeping the child. Her decision is dependent on the survival of her husband and she only has a curmudgeonly old doctor available for advice and support. The first two stories in the sequence lay the groundwork for the series as a whole. Drama is at the heart of Dekalog and the viewer is put through an emotional journey.

Dekalog: Five and Dekalog: Six continue the dramatic themes, but stand out due to the fact that they were expanded to longer features films (A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love respectively). Here the stories were lengthened, but in Dekalog they come in at under an hour and achieve a lot in this short time frame. Passion, horror and drama are on display and the result is gripping.

To watch all ten episodes of Dekalog in one sitting would take almost ten hours. The re-released Blu-Ray set comes with many special features, including extra short films and documentaries. Dekalog is best experienced if you treat each chapter as a separate short film and take time to digest the work after you have witnessed the drama.