Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Decalogue I and II

Originally made for Polish TV and seen only sporadically at special festival and museum showings, Kieslowski's epic series of 10 hour-long films, each based on one of the Ten Commandments, has now secured a regular theatrical run in L.A. for the first time, with two episodes showing each week . Part I, based on "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," takes a fairly obvious springboard -- that of science and computers replacing God in peoples' lives -- and turns it into a story of quiet power, in which a man and his young son rig everything in their house to be controlled by computer, then foolishly rely on the machine's calculations, with tragic results. This segment seems to depict a particularly vengeful God whose ultimate punishment is particularly harsh given the transgression. But He mellows out for part II, loosely inspired by "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain." There's neither blasphemy nor a broken oath sworn in God's name, but rather the question raised of when it's acceptable to lie, and an exploration of the religious right's unwritten 11th commandment, "Thou shalt not have an abortion." As a woman's husband lies dying, she must make the decision whether or not to abort her secret lover's unborn child, a decision that will be greatly influenced by whether her husband lives or dies. Intelligently written, beautifully shot, and featuring a moral stance even Dennis Prager wouldn't find offensive, The Decalogue thus far is a film for pretty much everyone except the short-attention spanned. Kieslowski makes better use of color than almost anybody, and revels in the small stuff: a wasp struggling to make its way out of a glass of juice as metaphor for life, or the portent of doom in a spilled pool of ink. The only minor drawback, and this may simply have been the screening copy, is that sometimes it's a little too dark to see what's going on.

Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Decalogue III and IV

Episode III, based upon honoring the Sabbath, is set on Christmas Eve, as a married man encounters a former lover who uses a series of pretenses to keep him with her through the evening. Uncharacteristically for Kieslowski, this one even throws a car chase into the mix. Episode IV ("Honor thy father and thy mother") is altogether more harrowing and difficult, as a young woman discovers, via a note from her late mother, that the man she lives with isn't her real father, forcing her to deal with both abandonment issues and semi-incestuous urges. It's the most involving of the series so far, a masterful example of how to tell a story as much by what the characters don't say as what they do. It may or may not be deliberate that Kieslowski is aided in this area by a lazy subtitler, who apparently didn't see fit to translate every utterance, nor many of the written words that are so important to the story. But it's a testament to the director's ability that the narrative comes across anyway.

Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Decalogue V and VI

This week's episodes offer up a double dose of creepy youths and foreshadowing of later American films. Episode V, "Thou shalt not kill," is like a more concise version of Tim Robbins' Dead Man Walking five years later: A thoroughly unpleasant juvenile delinquent brutally kills an obnoxious cab driver for no apparent reason, only to be sentenced to death and hanged. Columnist Harry Stein once wrote that you know you've "joined the vast right-wing conspiracy" when you can watch Dead Man Walking and still root for the guy to die at the end, and that may be possible for some here too, but it's about as eloquent an anti-capital punishment statement as has ever been committed to film. Two key moments drive the message home: a young attorney's plea that "the law should not imitate nature, the law should improve nature"; and the death sentence itself, which not only condemns the young man to die, but additionally to "loss of civil rights in perpetuity." Episode VI, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," was undoubtedly inspiration for Todd Solondz's Happiness, featuring a disturbed teen who spies on a promiscuous woman, only to have her eventually confront him and express a romantic interest, at which point things do not go as planned. Both films linger in the memory, especially V, with its unique use of filters, but the inadequate subtitling, less of a problem in previous episodes, is a frustration; key phrases seem to have been simply ignored by the translator. Not that that should deter you in any way from seeing Kieslowki's movies.

Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Decalogue VII and VIII

Episode VII, "Thou Shalt Not Steal," raises the question of whether or not it's possible to steal something that is yours, as a young mother kidnaps her daughter, who has been raised by the girl's grandmother to believe that the two of them are sisters. It's one of the stronger pieces as far as raising a moral dilemma goes, with neither side necessarily being in the right. Episode VIII, "Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness," also brings up an ethical dilemma -- refusing to hide children from the Nazis during wartime out of fear -- but utilizes an unfortunately obvious device: that of a college course on ethics, one in which the story from Episode II in the series is actually referred to, only to have its open issues quickly resolved by students and teacher. Both are visually stunning, and VII is truly wrenching, but VIII, despite some fine acting, is the weakest thus far, precisely because all the others have so brilliantly left the viewer to decide the ethics involved.

Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Decalogue IX and X

The series goes out on a rare note of whimsy, but first Kieslowski revs up the emotional wringer one last time for episode IX, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife," in which a doctor must face up to the ultimate male anxiety: permanent, incurable impotence. Dourly suggesting in passing that his wife will need to take a lover, he is horrified when clues start emerging that she may have done exactly that. The jealousy and lies that emerge only make things worse, as one might imagine, and you'll be on the edge of your seat for the resolution. But once it happens, kick back and laugh at the final episode, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods," which opens with a new wave song that advocates breaking all 10 commandments, and deals with an aspiring rock star and his straitlaced brother inheriting a valuable stamp collection, and trying to complete the series of stamps their father had failed to finish. They'd be better off selling the whole thing upfront, of course, but the possibility of even greater profits risks costing them everything. References abound in this one to "completing the series," and the fact that this episode does in such an unusual manner, given its predecessors, only serves to emphasize the brilliance of the completed work. If you've seen none of The Decalogue thus far, at least make an effort to catch these two before they leave.