The Decalogue- Buddy Powers

The Decalogue, a collection of ten short films abstractly depicting the Ten Commandments, was a rough film for me to watch. By the end of the movie I was able to appreciate to some extent the symbolism that showed the eight commandment, “thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor,” but overall the film was extremely uninteresting. I think in an attempt to be artistic, the movie looses most of its viewers because of how lame and boring the plot is. I think most of my distaste for the Decalogue is a product of my mostly American film up bringing. I am use to films that have a dynamic plot that is at least interesting. It is films like this that make me question the freedom that European filmmakers often take advantage of in their forms of story telling. Was this plain and boring a story worth the film makers or my time? Just because the film is working of a monumental precept for human existence (the eighth commandment) does not mean it can get away with telling such a pointless story. I understand that stories about everyday life, like the Decalogue, can be deeply moving but this film was in my opinion a failure. A film must be captivating. That does not mean that every tale has to be Russell Crow’s “Gladiator,” but I think that the Decalogue disgraces the powerful message of the eighth commandment by presenting an uninteresting, almost meaningless story.