Kaylee Carico Decalogue

Kaylee Carico-Decalogue

February 07, 2020

       In the first episode of the Polish film Decalogue, the commandment "Thou shalt have no other God before me." is emphasized on through the episodes following of a particular boy with a brilliant thinking mind, Pavel. His father, a technical athiest who beleives more in the rational than spiritual, is made out to be a caring and lonving father simply teaching his son about the ration and technial way of viewing the world. Pavel's aunt, on the other hand, sparks Pavels wonder for the divine in answering his questions about love and more emotional topics that require more that calculators and computers to answer. In the end of the episode, Pavel falls into an ice covered pond and dies after his father calculated and tested the ices density with not only his computer, but with his own bodyweight as well. As one watches the movie unfold, their personal takes on the purpose behind the lessons unravel which is where the midrash of Decalogue as a whole emerges, presenting its audience with these intense feelings as they seek to find what this means for them through the hermenuic presentation of how the father and aunt both act during the end of the first episode representing both the side of the beleiver and non-beleiver. Something to also be noted; a God- like charater appears in three scenes of this particular episode seen as a poor hobo serving as a remez for the omen of death and then disapearing after Pavel's sad demize showing that his deeper meaning was to signify that he was waiting for the death to occur throughout the movie. 

The second episode of Decalogue was one that emphasized on the commandment "Thou shalt not kill". As one watches the episode, they come to realize that the two people being followed throughout the film, the taxi driver and the murderer; are both pretty bad people. While the film is mostly centured around the actions of the murderer and his lawyer, the victum of the murdered, the taxi driver can also be called into question when thinking about the deeper meaning of this particular episode. Given that the texi driver is seen to be a bad charater at the start of the film ones innitial first thought may be that "oh well, he deserved it." however, given that Gods commandment states that killing is wrong, there is no sin big enough for a human to deem another human worthy of death, for that is a desicion only God can make. With that one can look at the scentencing of the murderer to death and how that goes against God's commandment as well. As the lawyer states, "Law should not imitate nature, but improve it.", meaning that just because killing happens in the nature of the wild does not make it right to be acted upon in the modern day world even if a murder takes place. God would set humans appart for the wild animals and would have us act as greater beings, therefore refraining from the killing of any sort even if that killing would right a wrong in the eyes of karma. It is the purpose of the commandment to not only restrain humans from killing their own kind, but as well as asure them that the karma of ones actions should be handled by God and God alone. 

-In watching the second episode I thought of the quote "An eye for an eye just makes the whole world blind." through using the midrash of what the stories meant to you, what other sayings can you link to the commandments to from the modern day? How and why did you think of these? :) 




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