Susan Watkins -- In Class Film 3

I thought the film The Decalogue was really fascinating although I found it a little hard to decode all the different symbols and things in it. I was really glad to discuss it after class because I feel like it helped me understand what was going on, but it was funny to see how different my original interpretation was from the ones other classmates offered.

For example, one of the biggest misinterpretations on my part was that of the contortionist in the park that meets the main character while she's running. In my mind, the whole movie had been using a very bleached color scheme which seemed to suggest that the world the characters inhabited was dull and somewhat lifeless, which probably goes along with the director's point because he's living in a time of social oppression and the characters in his story have some of that attitude too. The thing is, though, that when I saw the contortionist in his bright-colored suit I thought he was supposed to be a positive symbol, because in movies bright color is so often used as a positive contrast to blander tones. I thought maybe he represented the flexibility and freshness of the new generation rising up in that society, able to adapt to strange situations and still remain full of energy.

I guess though that the two interpretations can be melded, because when we try to adapt to new and difficult situations we might think we're doing something good but find ourselves ending up as unrecognizeable because we've changed so drastically. Maybe the director felt that the flashiness and youth of the new social movements around him were covering up a deeper wrongness...