Kieslowski's Decalogue at PFA

Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski made The Decalogue, a series of 10 one-hour films based on the Ten Commandments, for Polish television in 1988. Since that time it has rarely been screened commercially, other than in a handful of film festivals.

Pacific Film Archive is providing a rare opportunity to see these great films on the big screen, and over a series of just a few days, which is essential for retaining the mood of the work as a whole. The screenings are part of a larger career retrospective spanning the late Kieslowski’s impressive career.

Each film in The Decalogue is a separate and distinct creation, though they are all of a piece, united by theme and tone. It can be seen as a novel in the form of a series of short stories, like Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio; each film can be appreciated individually, yet together they create a unique and self-contained world, with shared locations and characters establishing each drama as part of a larger framework, as part of the larger drama of humanity.

The notion of a series of films based on the Ten Commandments may sound tedious, suggesting an overly intellectual and theoretical approach to the medium. Like Kieslowski’s Colors Trilogy—Blue, White and Red, each film deriving its theme from the symbolism of the French flag—it may give the impression that the director is more interested in themes than characters. But Kieslowski is not that sort of director and The Decalogue is not that sort of project.

This not an intellectual exercise; these are not merely illustrations of the Commandments. Rather, Kieslowski uses the Commandments as a springboard, a starting point for an examination of universal themes and crises.

Each film in the series is like a finely crafted short story, containing in one hour a remarkably efficient and emotional narrative with fully realized characters and relationships. Each has a plot but the focus is on the people and on the complex web of decisions and relationships that constitutes each life. Much of the action takes place without dialogue. Kieslowski trusts his script, his actors, his cinematographers (a different one for each film), and he trusts his own skills as a director, allowing this collaboration of talents to convey the necessary information with subtlety and grace. Together they find the telling details, those crucial moments and actions that bring a character sharply into focus for the audience and make clear the conflicting emotions that cloud each moral dilemma.

Decalogue 1, for example, features a professor addressing his class from behind a vast lectern while his young son sits among the students. A point-of-view shot demonstrates the feelings of the son as he watches his dad from behind the framework of a projector, catching glimpses of his father as a sort of God-like being holding forth on the rules of the universe. Later, when the grieving father walks into a church and destroys an altar, Kieslowski does not overplay the visual parallel between the altar and the lectern, but rather keeps his camera focused on the man and his emotions. The juxtaposition is there for those who wish to see it and it adds a layer of meaning to the story, but Kieslowski does not belabor the point.

In Decalogue 2 a woman is shown destroying a house plant and breaking a drinking glass out of what seems like sheer perversity. Kieslowski does not explain her actions, but the suggestion seems to be that she is girding herself for the destructive act of having an abortion.

Decalogue 3 features a woman reestablishing contact with her former lover. They are both married and have recently ended their illicit affair, but she draws him out on a mad search for her phantom husband, visiting jail cells and empty subterranean parking garages in the middle of the night. The staging again suggests something deeper at work, as though the man is being forced to venture into the netherworld of his guilty conscience before declaring to his wife, in the closing shot, that he will not be venturing out at night anymore.

Decalogue 5 takes a darker turn with a story of murder and capital punishment. A young man senselessly attacks an older man and a young defense attorney is later assigned the case. Much of the film is shot in a dark sepia tone, while the perimeter of the frame is often shrouded in a murky haze, suggesting the nebulous morality of state-sanctioned execution and the vague boundaries that distinguish it from murder.

Another example of Kieslowki’s technique is in Decalogue 9, where a man learns of his infertility and returns home to break the news to his wife. As they ride together in an elevator, they are engulfed in darkness, with shafts of light briefly illuminating one and then the other. Kieslowski has subtly shown us the rift between them; they are individuals now, not a couple, alone in darkness and unified only by her hand reaching through the blackness to touch his face, to establish contact across the gulf that is widening between them.

It’s not all darkness and brooding however. Decalogue 10 concludes the series on a more humorous note, as two brothers are reunited by their estranged father’s death and find themselves becoming obsessed by his stamp collection. This film is not without its serious themes and moments of suspense and anxiety, but is leavened with a dark humor not seen in the previous pictures.

And all throughout these films run two more unifying threads, one conspicuous and one quite subtle. The first is the recurring appearance of a mysterious young man with a piercing gaze who observes the action but never takes part. He seems to play the role of a sort of mute Greek chorus, offering a silent commentary on the tragedy and absurdity of the dramas playing out before us. The other is the recurring sound of barking dogs, usually somewhere off in the distance and often at crucial moments—a lonely but portentous refrain, suggesting that damnation looms beyond each moral quandary.

There was a time when camera technique meant something, when acute angles or a shaky handheld camera signified something about character or plot. But the language of cinema has become diluted of late, with directors using every flourish and every gimmick imaginable, like a sort of pyrotechnic display: all flash and spectacle but with little substance. in contrast, Kieslowski subjugates his technique to the film, keeping the camera always at the service of the story.

Orson Welles once said that a movie should not reveal all its secrets in a single viewing. We view paintings more than once; we read stories and novels more than once; we listen to a piece of music over and over again throughout our lives. Why should movies not be the same way? Kieslowski seems to adhere to this maxim, creating small but dense portraits of people at crucial turning points in their lives. His films can be seen once and enjoyed, but a second and third viewing reveals the rich, textured layers of his creations, films that lay rooted in modern reality but speak eloquently and timelessly of universal truths.

The Decalogue (1988)

Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski. Written by Krzysztof Piesiewicz and Kieslowski.

Playing June 1-3 and repeated June 4-11 at at Pacific Film Archive. Discounted tickets for the entire series are available. 2626 Bancroft Way. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu.

Real Face of Baby Face Finally Revealed

Pacific Film Archive’s “A Theater Near You” series is a showcase for films that don’t make it to your local megaplex. This week PFA is featuring an encore screening of Baby Face, the notorious 1933 Pre-Code film that for decades was only seen in a heavily censored version. A negative of the original version was discovered in 2004 and the restored film has been circulating for about a year in advance of its upcoming DVD release. 

Seeing the complete version is a revelation, for not only is it just as salacious as it was long rumored to be, it is also a truly great film. It made the rounds of Bay Area theaters last year, playing at the Castro Theater and the Balboa Theater as well as PFA. But the seats filled up so quickly at the PFA screening that they’ve brought it back for another engagement. 

The film shows at 7 p.m. Friday and again at 5:30 p.m. Sunday. Though it will be available on home video soon enough, this funny, cynical melodrama deserves to be seen with an audience. 

Hollywood began enforcing the Production Code in early 1930s, establishing strict rules of morality on motion pictures in an attempt to put an end to the perceived hedonism that had run rampant during the silent era and during the first few years of talkies. 

Pre-Code usually refers to films made and released before the enforcement of the Production Code, movies that generally contain a great deal more sex, crime and assorted vice than the censored films that followed. But Baby Face is among a rather unique class of Pre-Code films in that it was created before the Code, yet released during the Code’s enforcement. Therefore the film, made under the old rules, was subjected to the new rules before it could be released. 

The result was that the censors took an uncompromising and sordid tale and sanitized it as much as possible. Shots were removed; scenes were toned down; new dialogue was recorded; a new ending was tacked on; and one character’s identity and purpose were entirely reconfigured. 

The new print also features a coda in which the closing credits are followed by a few of the censors’ edits. Seen in context, these changes are particularly hilarious and poorly conceived, transforming a dark and interesting film into run-of-the-mill Hollywood tripe. 

The story concerns one Lily Powers, played by Barbara Stanwyck. Her father runs a speakeasy that caters to steel workers and he makes a little extra money on the side as his daughter’s pimp. Previously excised shots from these early scenes show the father pocketing cash from a local politician in exchange for time alone with Lily, as well as a point-of-view shot as the politician ogles her, the camera moving slowly up the length of her body, lingering at particular points of interest before settling on her jaded and weary face. 

Desperate to escape this bleak existence, Lily seeks guidance from a local cobbler who offers ruthless advice, quoting Nietzsche and encouraging her to use and exploit men in pursuit of her desires. 

Eventually she makes her way to the big city and does just that, taking a job in the mail room of a bank. She starts on the first floor and begins methodically seducing and destroying men who can further her interests. Each conquest is followed by a pan up the side of the building, pulling back from a window on one floor and pushing toward a window on a higher floor, illustrating Lily’s rise up the corporate ladder. Nothing subtle here: Lily’s sleeping her way to the top. 

These are just a few examples of the sort of gleeful frankness Baby Face evinces, treating shady topics with wry cynicism. The crucial ingredient is Stanwyck. Her Lily is smart, cynical and cruel, a hard-luck dame brimming with ambition and a smoldering and dangerous sexuality. The powerful men she sets her eyes on have no chance against her; her withering glances and callous manipulation leave them stammering and defenseless. A young John Wayne even makes an appearance—several years before cementing his reputation as a swaggering tough guy—as a diffident office boy who makes an inept attempt to get a second date with Lily after she has already exhausted his usefulness. 

The irony of the film is that the censors really didn’t need to alter the ending. Though the movie is full of sex and cruelty, Lily Powers really does learn something at the end, demonstrating her humanity and compassion, even without the Code’s prodding. 

But apparently that wasn’t enough; they added an extra scene to further delineate her fate, and the inclusion of this scene after the closing credits in the new print brings the misogyny of the Code quickly into focus for modern audiences: Stay home girls, or somebody’s gonna get hurt. 

Baby Face (1933). Starring Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Donald Cook, Alfonse Ethier, Henry Kolker, Theresa Harris. Directed by Alfred E. Green. 

Afghanistan's Fatal Flower

Berkeley filmmakers Cliff Orloff and Olga Shalygin return to the public airwaves this weekend with their latest documentary about Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban.

Afghanistan’s Fatal Flower, a half-hour look at the opium trade, airs on KQED at Sunday at 2 p.m. and again on KQED World at 9 a.m. and noon on Tuesday, May 23.

Orloff and Shalygin track the production of opium from the poppy fields of Afghanistan to the streets of the world’s urban capitals. The path, like the issue itself, is complex, winding through various strata of society.

Though the reins of power have changed hands, Afghanistan is far from the success story the Bush administration would have us believe. The warlords may have exchanged their fatigues for business suits in an attempt to gain public respectability but their practices have apparently changed little, as they still maintain private militias that are funded primarily by the opium trade. And their opulent lifestyles, in marked contrast to the people they claim to represent, can only be funded—in a country where the average income is well below a dollar a day—by illicit activity.

Afghanistan is responsible for 87 percent of the world’s heroin, which may give an idea of just how much money is to be made in the business, and consequently just how strong the allure of the trade is for the country’s poor farmers. One farmer is quoted as saying that a field of poppies can bring in more than 20 times as much money as a field of cotton.

Gold is still the traditional method of storing one’s wealth, but Fatal Flower shows that opium has become far more lucrative. It essentially serves as Afghanistan’s stock market. From farmers and smugglers to politicians and warlords, everyone along the chain of production socks away stockpiles of opium to sell at a later date when the price is high. In a nation of great uncertainty, the illicit opium trade has filled a gaping void, proving to be not just a seductive and lucrative side business, but one of the few sources of economic and cultural stability.

Carol Reed's The Fallen Idol

British director Carol Reed’s reputation rests almost exclusively on his 1949 noir classic The Third Man, and if that were the only movie he ever made his reputation would be secure. But as great as that film is, it is not Reed’s only masterpiece.

Reed had an uneven career, but made two other films that measure up quite nicely with his masterwork: Odd Man Out and The Fallen Idol, a restored version of which shows this weekend at Pacific Film Archive. Criterion will release the film on DVD later this year.

The genre-defying Fallen Idol cannot be categorized quite as easily as The Third Man. It is essentially plot-driven and contains elements of noir, melodrama and suspense, yet it also places great importance on character, with great care given to the depiction of the friendship between a boy and his family’s butler.

The plot, based on a short story by Graham Greene, centers on Baines (Ralph Richardson, in a sad and dignified performance), the butler for an ambassador. Phil (Bobby Henrey) is the ambassador’s son.

When Baines’ wife confronts him with evidence that he is having an affair, they argue, and at some point Mrs. Baines slips from a ledge above the mansion’s staircase and falls to her death. The child does not see the entire scene, but sees enough of it to make him believe that the butler killed his wife by throwing her down the stairs.

We know Baines is innocent but Reed still manages to keep the suspense taut as an investigation ensues. For Baines, despite his innocence, has managed to spin a complicated web of deceit in an effort to keep both his mistress and his employer from getting entangled in the case. He has told the boy what to say and what not to say to the police, which lies to tell and which truths to conceal. Yet the boy has already demonstrated his inability to keep a secret by revealing Baines’ affair, and now he is asked to conceal what he thinks are the details of a murder.

This is not just a case of Hitchcock-style suspense, however, for the tension in this film stems as much from character as from plot. Baines is a good man and a sympathetic character; his attempts to shield others from the investigation are noble; his kindness toward the boy is endearing. The boy is innocent, trusting and loving, yet caught up in an adult melodrama that he is incapable of understanding. There is a multi-layered tragedy in the making here: that Baines may be found guilty of a crime he didn’t commit, and that the responsibility for that unjust verdict will rest on the tiny shoulders of the naïve young boy who loves him.

But the greater tragedy at work, and the central theme of the film, is the violation of a child’s innocence. Phil is thrust into a world of lies and betrayal that he is unable to fully comprehend, and the final result is to knock Baines—the idol of the film’s title, a hero and father figure to Phil—from the pedestal on which the boy has placed him.

Reed uses symbolism beautifully, making effective use of the imagery available in the house itself. For instance, in an early shot Phil is seen through the banister as though peering through prison bars, though he is not so much imprisoned by his parents or by the house or by his station in life as he is by the limits of his own consciousness. He is simply too young to understand the complexities and emotions of the adults around him.

One extraordinary shot uses the house to demonstrate the distance between Baines and his wife as the couple, seen from the top of the stairs, cross paths in the great hall. As one descends and crosses, the other moves across the floor and toward the staircase, the two exchanging unpleasantries as they pass. Reed acknowledged the influence of the filmmaking style of Orson Welles on The Third Man, but the influence is evident here as well as Reed borrows from Citizen Kane in using the vast spaces and echoing surfaces of the mansion to illustrate the distance and coldness of a disintegrating marriage.

The basement too is used symbolically, for it not only represents the servants’ quarters and kitchen, it becomes the repository for the characters’ basest emotions, a place where the thoughts suppressed in the majestic halls of the grand mansion finally bubble to the surface.

Most effective and subtle however is the use of the great hall itself, with its checkerboard floor reinforcing the strategy of the investigators and the investigated as they play out the dangerous endgame of the plot’s delicate chess match. The police close in, surrounding and interrogating Baines as he retreats, steps forward and retreats again, searching for a path through the various threats and scenarios of crime and punishment, trying to think a few moves ahead in an attempt to avoid checkmate.

Child actors are frequently nauseating, so cloyingly precocious and meddlesome. But The Fallen Idol provides an all-too-rare exception. Bobby Henrey’s performance here is something to behold; he looks, sounds and acts like a genuine 8-year-old boy. Too often, kids in movies are transformed into miniature adults or held up as paragons of virtue, more symbol than human: child as Innocence, as Purity, as Spirituality, etc. Phil is not given any special talents or rare intelligence; nor does he apparently have a speech coach to transform his lisp into crisp, snappy dialogue. This kid is just a kid, by turns endearing, annoying, intelligent, clueless, loving, selfish, thoughtful—but always a kid.

Situational ethics is not necessarily innate. Phil is told to lie sometimes, told to tell the truth other times; it’s hardly clear to him what’s right and wrong, and his confusion is compounded by the fact that the adults around him at time seem to hear only the lies and ignore the truth.

In Phil’s mind, adults are infallible, and their institutions—law and justice—are absolutes. The Fallen Idol depicts his disillusionment as he learns that adults are indeed fallible; that institutions are as highly subjective as the people who administer them; and that even if children aren’t exactly miniature adults, adults are in fact just grown children—as endearing, annoying, intelligent, clueless and selfish as those they shepherd into adulthood.

The Fallen Idol (1948). Starring Ralph Richardson, Bobby Henrey, Michèle Morgan, Jack Hawkins, Bernard Lee. Directed by Carol Reed. Based on a short story by Graham Greene.