Kenneth Tappan- The Decalogue

The Decalogue was part of a series of films that dealt with the ten commandments. The film we watched in class was about the ninth commandment "thou shalt not bear false witness to thy neihbour". In the film a woman turns down a jewish girl becuase she fears she is a spy. Later in life the young women returns to find her past and the people who denied her. The lady who turned her down is now a old women who is overjoyed to see that she survived. It turns out that it was a lie that the young girl was a german spy. Throughout the movie the town is reluctant to talk about its history and the holocaust. As a history major this film reminded me of the Nasty Girl which deals with a town struggling to remember or acknowledge its Nazi past. The Decalogue shows that even couragous resisters like the young women can sin. We are all human and we are all sinful this movie explains this notion.