The Decalogue films were shown on television in a deeply Catholic country, where viewers would instantly have noted the contrast and identified with the same basic problems the ordinary people onscreen experience as they also fall in love, lose their children, commit petty crimes, and have affairs.
By setting all of the films in the same dismal apartment complex, Kieslowski suggests that these aren't isolated incidents: Your neighbors next door and down the hall and five floors above you are experiencing the same problems you are, and living with the same ethical and moral dilemmas. He challenges the loneliness people feel by giving them the sense that they aren't alone.
Read Full Article »