The monumental masterpiece by the director of The Double Life of Véronique and the Blue, White and Red "Tricolour Trilogy."

Pacific Cinémathèque is pleased to present a return engagement of Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Decalogue (1988), a truly towering accomplishment that stands as one of the landmark works of contemporary world cinema. (Can anything produced since, save perhaps Béla Tarr's Satantango (1994), rival it for monumental achievement and stature?)

Active as a director of documentaries and then features in Poland since the 1970s, Kieslowski rocketed to world-wide success in the early 90s with a series of four strangely metaphysical films which became huge art-house hits: The Double Life of Véronique (1991), and the "Tricolour Trilogy" of Blue (1993), White (1993) and Red (1994). It was The Decalogue, however, which first secured his status as a major film artist of international importance.

Produced for Polish television in 1988, and screened to awe and astonishment at the Venice film festival in 1989, The Decalogue is made up of ten self-contained, hour-long episodes, each based on one of the Ten Commandments, and each centring on fallible characters caught up in a difficult moral or ethical dilemma.
Each instalment was shot by a different cinematographer, with a largely different cast; all are situated around the same Warsaw housing complex. "Each film is a miniature jewel" (Sunday Times), and can be enjoyed and appreciated entirely on its own; all share subtle cross-references and resonances which give the work as whole a tremendous cumulative power.

Kieslowski died in 1996 at the age of 54. Many consider him to be to be the most significant European filmmaker to emerge in last two decades. If there is any single one of his achievements that can best sustain such weighty claims, it is The Decalogue.

"In The Decalogue... Kieslowski goes right to the heart of the ways most of us live, feel and think. In the process, he has given us films of such warmth and generosity of spirit that they make most contemporary art look petty and small-minded. I'd say that was plenty to be grateful for."
-- Tony Rayns, Vancouver International Film Festival

Please note that due to the high cost of acquiring The Decalogue, the following ticket prices are in effect for this engagement:

• $4.00 one part
• $6.50 two parts
• $7.50 three parts

• $6.50 two parts
• $7.50 four parts

Half-price admission for new or renewing members is not in effect for this event. Purchasers of memberships will receive a voucher good for a half-price admission at any regular Pacific Cinémathèque event.

• 7:15 pm Decalogue One
• 8:30 pm Decalogue Two
• 9:45 pm Decalogue Three

• 7:15 pm Decalogue Four
• 8:30 pm Decalogue Five
• 9:45 pm Decalogue Six

• 7:30 pm Decalogue Seven & Decalogue Eight
• 9:35 pm Decalogue Nine & Decalogue Ten

• 7:15 pm Decalogue One
• 8:30 pm Decalogue Two
• 9:45 pm Decalogue Three

• 7:15 pm Decalogue Four
• 8:30 pm Decalogue Five
• 9:45 pm Decalogue Six

• 7:30 pm Decalogue Seven & Decalogue Eight
• 9:35 pm Decalogue Nine & Decalogue Ten

Thou shalt have no other God but Me
Decalogue One
Poland 1988. Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Cast: Henryk Baranowski, Wojciech Klata, Maja Komorowska
The computer-obsessed father of a computer-obsessed son finds the limits of his rationality tested by random fate and tragedy. "Kieslowski's moving drama unfolds with all the force of a metaphysical ghost story... The performances and direction are calibrated to perfection; the result is a film of shattering insight, laced with black humour and savage irony" (Time Out). Colour, 35mm, in Polish with English subtitles. 53 mins.

Friday, February 25 7:15 pm
Thursday, March 2 7:15 pm

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Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain
Decalogue Two
Poland 1988. Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Cast: Krystyna Janda, Aleksander Bardini, Olgierd Lukaszewicz
The elderly doctor of a cancer patient is asked to play God by the patient's wife, who is pregnant with another man's baby. "As in Dekalog 1, the film's power comes from the precise, economic delineation of character and circumstance" (Time Out). Colour, 35mm, in Polish with English subtitles. 57 mins.

Friday, February 25 8:30 pm
Thursday, March 2 8:30 pm

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Thou shalt honour the Sabbath Day
Decalogue Three
Poland 1988. Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Cast: Daniel Olbrychski, Maria Pakulnis, Joanna Szczepkowska
A taxi-driver is lured from his family on Christmas Eve by an ex-mistress who insists that he help her search for her missing husband. "[The Decalogue's] car-chase episode! ... In a series as well-acted as this, it seems invidious to single out individual performances for praise. But Daniel Olbrychski here [is superb]" (Tony Rayns). Colour, 35mm, in Polish with English subtitles. 56 mins.

Friday, February 25 9:45 pm
Thursday, March 2 9:45 pm

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Thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother
Decalogue Four
Poland 1988. Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Cast: Adrianna Biedrzynska, Janusz Gajos, Artur Barcis
20-year-old drama student Anka lives with, and is close to, her architect father; her mother died in childbirth. One day, while dad is out-of-town on business, she discovers in his desk an envelope marked "To Be Opened In the Event of My Death." "A truly heart-rending film" (Tony Rayns). "Masterly... The performances by Biedrzynska and Gajos... are astounding" (Time Out). Colour, 35mm, in Polish with English subtitles. 55 mins.

Saturday, February 26 7:15 pm
Friday, March 3 7:15 pm

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Thou shalt not kill
Decalogue Five
Poland 1988. Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Cast: Miroslaw Baka, Krzysztof Globisz, Jan Tesarz
An aimless youth brutally murders a taxi driver, and is then marked for execution by the State. "Shot by Slawomir Idziak through a range of filters that give Warsaw the look of a city of pestilence, this is a shattering film" (Tony Rayns). "Extraordinary... deeply unsettling... A raw, edgy, challenging work" (Time Out). Also released as the expanded, feature-length A Short Film About Killing -- but a piss-coloured masterpiece (and one of the great works of the 1980s) in either version. Colour, 35mm, in Polish with English subtitles. 57 mins.

Saturday, February 26 8:30 pm
Friday, March 3 8:30 pm

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Thou shalt not commit adultery
Decalogue Six
Poland 1988. Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Cast: Grazyna Szapolowska, Olaf Lubaszenko, Stefania Iwinska
A virginal 19-year-old postal worker gets more than he bargained for when he begins spying by telescope on an attractive 30-year-old woman who lives in the apartment block opposite. Kieslowski's Rear Window-like take on voyeurism "offers two antithetical accounts of obsession -- and wonders if either of them is actually love" (Tony Rayns). The expanded, feature-length version is known as A Short Film About Love, and has an entirely different ending. Colour, 35mm, in Polish with English subtitles. 58 mins.

Saturday, February 26 9:45 pm
Friday, March 3 9:45 pm

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Thou shalt not steal
Decalogue Seven
Poland 1988. Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Cast: Anna Polony, Maja Barelkowska, Wladyslaw Kowalski
A young woman, determined to face up to her responsibilities and to stop living a lie, "kidnaps" the "younger sister" who is actually her daughter. "Only nominally about stealing... It is really a questioning -- and insightful -- examination of the difficulty of growing up (for all generations), and the true meaning and implications of fathering and mothering" (Time Out). Colour, 35mm, in Polish with English subtitles. 55 mins.

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Thou shalt not bear false witness
Decalogue Eight
Poland 1988. Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Cast: Maria Koscialkowska, Teresa Marczewska, Artur Barcis
Surprising revelations emerge when an elderly Warsaw ethics professor and an visiting American academic discuss the case of a Polish couple who during the Nazi Occupation refused to pose as godparents of an imperilled Jewish baby on the grounds that "bearing false witness" would compromise their Catholic faith. Colour, 35mm, in Polish with English subtitles. 55 mins.

Sunday, February 27 7:30 pm
Saturday, March 4 7:30 pm

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Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife
Decalogue Nine
Poland 1988. Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Cast: Ewa Blaszczyk, Piotr Machalica, Artur Barcis
A successful heart surgeon learns that he is permanently impotent, and assumes that his wife will want to take a lover. "A complex, unsettling movie... that digs deep to find the Ôirreducible' in people, but offers no simplistic answers (save that of Love, the subject and object of all ten of the Dekalog series)" (Time Out). Colour, 35mm, in Polish with English subtitles. 58 mins.

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Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods
Decalogue Ten
Poland 1988. Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Cast: Jerzy Stuhr, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Henryk Bista
Two brothers -- one a punk singer, the other older and married -- inherit their estranged father's extremely valuable stamp collection. "A black comedy on the potentially destructive effect of material wealth... like a version of Bresson's L'Argent directed by Bertrand Blier" (Time Out). "If you weren't sure how to take the occasional jokes in the other nine films, this jet-black comedy puts them into perspective. It ends the series with a broad grin" (Tony Rayns). Colour, 35mm, in Polish with English subtitles. 57 mins.

Sunday, February 27 9:35 pm
Saturday, March 4 9:35 pm

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