It is a rare sight to see a woman take the lead in a classical Western, and perhaps entirely unique to Johnny Guitar to see her set against another woman as the equally compelling villain. Don’t be misled by the title – the string-strumming outsider and his distaste for guns is only secondary to this bitter conflict between saloonkeeper Vienna and cattle baron Emma, simmering with a vile tension that is ready to boil over into violence at any moment.
The reason for such loathing on Emma’s behalf though is masked behind layers of excuses. There is Vienna’s support of the railroad that will soon run through her land, bringing sheepman to town. There is her unpopular decision to permit a group of rambunctious confederates to frequent her saloon. There is the false suspicion that she is behind the stagecoach robbery that recently killed Emma’s brother. Emma cares little for any of these quarrels, but they certainly at least prove to be useful in riling up the local cattlemen. Instead, it is her unrequited love for the Dancing Kid, Vienna’s old flame, which underlies her hateful rage.
It is Ray’s blocking of actors across layers of so many fantastic compositions that marks Johnny Guitar as his greatest cinematic achievement.
Similarly, the job that Hayden Sterling’s titular guitarist has been summoned to town for is also one layered with separate intentions. On the surface, Vienna has hired Johnny to play music for her saloon. Prodding a little deeper, he reveals himself to be a quick draw with a gun that she realises will be handy when trouble inevitably arises with the locals. On a base, psychological level though, her reasoning is simple – there is still some unresolved feelings lingering between the two from a past relationship. Nicholas Ray’s development of such multifaceted characters gives way to profoundly gripping drama in Johnny Guitar, delivering pulsating dialogue as rhythmic and loaded with subtext as anything one would find in a film noir.
“How many men have you forgotten?”
“As many women as you’ve remembered.”
It isn’t that Ray’s narrative moves slowly, but the time he takes to flesh out these character interactions in both his screenplay and staging certainly takes up larger portions of the film than most other Westerns of this ilk. Johnny arrives at the saloon in the first few minutes of the film, and it isn’t until almost forty minutes that we leave this location for another, but this magnificent, rustic set proves to be all Ray needs to set up his drama. One wall takes the appearance of a rocky cliff face, as if the saloon has been built into the side of a mountain, and with a balcony setting a stage for interactions across uneven levels, romances and rivalries are blocked with stunning visual flair. From low angles, Vienna stands tall upon the balcony like a queen in her domain, while high angles from this vantage point shrink Emma below, whose lack of physical power is offset by the large mass of ranchers standing right behind her.
High and low angles in mid-shots and wides, setting up these two rivals as polar opposites.
Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge are opposites in these roles, yet both deliver an equally remarkable pair of performances as enemies. McCambridge’s eyes are as small and mean as Crawford’s are large and expressive, and where the former predominantly dresses in drab, black dresses to put on a show of mourning, the latter is instantly recognisable for her array of bright, colourful costumes. Ray’s striking Technicolor serves these outfits well, setting Vienna apart as a woman fully embracing the full range of sartorial expression, as opposed to more traditional gunslingers like Johnny whose muted greys and browns blend into his earthy surroundings.
A remarkable composition illustrating the separation between the old lovers. Kitchen utensils hanging in the foreground, Johnny a little further back, Vienna isolated in the window frame wearing her gorgeous purple dress. As the conversation goes on, she emerges around the corner and romantic tension grows.A bright red shirt – Vienna is out for vengeance, and Ray throws shadows across these scene as they plan their next move.Several scenes are spent watching Vienna change outfits, but the blocking never falters.
As Johnny Guitar progresses, Vienna’s regalia grows even more vibrant with the intensifying conflict. The navy blue she starts off with is perhaps the subtlest we will see her dress in the entire film, and yet it still projects a mannered demeanour while she is most in control. When her mind later turns to vengeance, she changes into a burning red shirt, and then as she goes to confront her adversary one last time, her iconic canary yellow top finally makes an appearance, setting herself up as a vibrant source of hope – though not without keeping the angry touch of scarlet in her scarf.
A pale white figure accepting her fate, calmly playing the piano as Emma and the lynch mob arrive.
Sheila O’Brien’s costume design makes for a particularly striking composition when Emma and her lynch mob arrive at the saloon to confront Vienna a second time, only to find her peacefully playing piano in a flowing, white gown against the rocky brown wall. There is a calm acceptance here which, while confident, also makes her terribly vulnerable. Ray is sure to keep emphasising the massive oil-lamp chandelier that Vienna lit at the start of this scene here, especially capturing it from low angles, hanging over Emma’s head in a daunting piece of foreshadowing. Sure enough, she sends it crashing down to the floor only minutes later, burning down the saloon in a devastating set piece. In her mad smile and dour black outfit, one might call to mind the image of the Wicked Witch of the West, and with the orchestra playing up and down a delirious scale reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz’s tornado sequence the comparison is even plainer.
In every shot this oil lamp chandelier appears, Ray uses it to craft an excellent composition and set up its eventual relevance to the narrative.Foreshadowing in this tremendous low angle and blocking.Emma’s gun shot, dropping the oil lamps to the floor and setting fire to the saloon.Ray knows what he has with this set piece, frequently cutting back to the burning facade.
The climactic showdown that ends Johnny Guitar does not try to top this in scale, but it does pay off on its character drama to an even greater extent, subverting our expectations that Johnny will be the one to save the day by letting Vienna land the killing blow on her foe. It is not his physical strength or skill with a gun which sways the course of events, but rather his moral fortitude, winning her over to his pacifist, musical lifestyle. Though the two lovers happily unite in these closing minutes, there is still something tragic about the way this male-dominated environment drives a wedge between two headstrong women, setting them up in bitter competition against each other as if there were only room for one. The most obvious feminist reading of Johnny Guitar is right there on the surface for anyone to grasp, but it is just as much in the sympathy that is offered to the mean-spirited Emma that the film reveals its deepest compassions, projecting a feminine sensitivity upon the Western genre through its marvellously complex characters and vibrant visual expressions.
The geography of Ray’s blocking. Vienna in the top left, Emma in the top right, Johnny in the bottom left, the Dancing Kid in the bottom right. Everything is set up visually in this wide shot for the final showdown.A high angle sending Johnny and Vienna on their way, walking through a crowd of black-clad men.
Johnny Guitar is currently available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, Google Play, and Amazon Prime Video.
It is 1997, and Manhattan has been walled off from the rest of America. To deal with a 400% increase in crime, the island has been turned into a giant maximum-security prison, though its inmates are not confined to cells. Inside, gangs and criminals run wild, turning the city into an anarchic playground brimming with violence and chaos. Such a concept as this is all too ripe for a master of genre filmmaking like John Carpenter. Escape From New York is a science-fiction, an action, but most of all it runs by the Western playbook, following those familiar conventions we have seen John Ford and Sergio Leone play out over decades of cinema.
In place of the rocky outcrops of Monument Valley though, we get hulking metal and concrete structures wasting away through an urban wilderness. Instead of dusty saloons with a piano playing in the corner, we get a giant theatre where prisoners take refuge and perform showtunes for the entertainment of others. And where we fight expect to see Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name swaggering through a sandy desert, we instead find Snake Plissken, a cynical, raspy-voiced Special Forces veteran assigned to rescue the President whose flight has crashed right in the middle of the island. Snake’s character design is entirely memorable, and even a little bit ludicrous given his eye-patch and giant snake tattoo, but with Kurt Russell’s terse, rugged performance grounding it with a sense of conviction, Escape From New York hangs in that sweet intersection between playfully outlandish and emphatically sincere.
A solid use of miniatures to create a dystopian New York in wonderful establishing shots.
With a timer strapped to his wrist counting down to his death should he fail his mission, and a stealth glider landing him on top of the World Trade Centre, Snake goes about tracking down the kidnapped President through Manhattan in the dead of night. From the gloomy establishing shots of New York enclosed by a prison wall to the harsh, metallic angles of its architecture, Carpenter accomplishes quite a feat of world-building production design. His work with miniatures to build towering cityscapes effectively deliver on the epic scale of Snake’s quest, though it is especially in the rundown streets lit only by stray fires and scattered with abandoned cars that we feel ourselves truly overtaken by New York’s labyrinth of concrete and steel monstrosities.
With his dystopian mise-en-scène offering itself up to striking compositions of our hero and his ragtag posse of oddball characters wandering the decrepit landscape, Carpenter crafts a hostile environment that, for all its misery and decay, is also a culture full of living people. On either side of the Duke of New York’s car, a pair of chandeliers stand as a small show of status, announcing themselves as sophisticated oddities in a wretched terrain. Back at his headquarters, death matches are conducted for the perverse pleasure of his gang members, asserting their own dominance over outsiders with what little resources they have.
Detail in Carpenter’s mise-en-scène – the turned over cars rising out of the landscape like outcrops, and the dilapidated architecture of New York closing around Snake and his gang like a labyrinth of buildings and bridges.
Across it all, Carpenter drenches his world in the pervasive darkness of night. It is telling that when the sun inevitably rises, Snake is conveniently knocked unconscious so we can cut straight to the following evening. Escape From New York thrives in its nocturnal setting, surrounding its plot with a powerfully grim atmosphere that creeps into the crevices between every action set piece and thrilling dramatic turn.
In the contempt that Snake holds towards the government officials that he is working for, we see a glimpse of the America that lies just beyond New York. That the wealthy elite care so little about what takes place inside the boundaries of this giant prison is evident in how willingly the President brushes off his experience afterwards, despite experiencing legitimate traumas. For Snake Plissken though, this bleak hellhole of urban ruin and chaos is where he finds himself most at home, wandering the most dangerous frontiers of modern society.
This wasteland is brimming with culture – death matches caught in these superbly blocked compositions.
Escape From New York is currently available to stream on Stan, Binge, and Foxtel Now, and available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.
It is even before Body Heat reaches the pivotal murder upon which its entire narrative revolves that the Double Indemnity influence emerges in the sensual rhythms of its dialogue, with every line seeming to be either an innuendo or a coy setup for one. All of it seeps with sexual desire, the heavy flirting underscored by sleazy saxophone riffs which might seem heavy-handed if it didn’t so perfectly match the embellished eroticism of the performances and screenplay. Where Billy Wilder had to work within the strict Production Code of the 1940s to create Double Indemnity, Lawrence Kasdan abides by no such restrictions here, playing into both the literal and suggestive readings of his film’s title to draw us into its irresistible allure.
A pervasive red colouring through the lighting – heat and passion rendered cinematically.
The perspiration that coats the faces of every single character in Body Heat can be put down to the particularly intense heatwave rolling through South Florida, but when smooth-talking lawyer Ned begins a secretive affair with Matty, the wealthy wife of a successful businessman, the beads of sweat that roll down his naked body might as well be from the sexual workout and thick humidity of their steamy encounters. It is just as well he has two solid reasons to be so clammy all the time, because when his private entanglement takes a plunge into murder and betrayal, the sweat from his guilty conscience is well-disguised. It is with our own understanding of Ned’s tainted conscience that we can see the fear in his eyes, and William Hurt expertly balances this highly-strung apprehension with the cool charm of his vain, lustful lawyer.
But it is Kathleen Turner who truly runs away with this film, playing the Barbara Stanwyck to Hurt’s Fred MacMurray. Somehow though, this femme fatale is even more cunning and careful in her plotting than Double Indemnity’s Phyllis Dietrichson. Like a true student of film noir, Kasdan illustrates character detail in his work with shadows and blocking, especially as he gradually reveals Matty to be the sort of untouchable figure twenty steps ahead of everyone else. As she walks away from Ned into the boathouse she has rigged to explode, she is consumed by the darkness, and yet within this void she glows brightly like an angelic icon, finally freed from the constraints of a life she has been trying to escape for years.
An angelic white figure disappearing into the darkness.
Perhaps the shocking ending which sees her emerge on top is Kasdan’s apologetic rewriting of historical genre conventions, which typically saw these intelligent women punished for their underhanded manipulations. Matty may not be a morally pure character, but who is in this world? If anyone is going to get their happy ending, why shouldn’t it be the one with the wits, charm, and patience to get it? Body Heat surely isn’t the first film to push the boundaries of the neo-noir, but it may one of the most overwhelmingly passionate, filling its air with a thick, humid wantonness that only one of its many characters truly knows how to navigate.
Superb blocking through Venetian blinds and mirrors.
Body Heat is available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, Google Play, and Amazon Prime Video.
An artistic paradox like Blood and Black Lace is hard to reckon with – aside from the awful screenplay, performances, and dubbing, Mario Bava crafts a visually spectacular slasher film that places an eerily uncomfortable tone and atmosphere above all else. Fourteen years later, Dario Argento would take inspiration from Bava’s lighting, colours, and camerawork to create a flawed masterpiece plagued with similar issues in Suspiria. Although Blood and Black Lace does not reach the same transcendent heights, the audacious, bloody style of this early Italian giallo film remains a singularly jaw-dropping accomplishment of horror filmmaking, disturbing our senses as much as our sensibilities.
When a masked killer starts knocking off models in a Roman fashion house one by one, a mystery emerges around whose identity lies beneath that stretched piece of white fabric and fedora, as well as a diary that seems to hold dark secrets. Narratively, Blood and Black Lace falls in the Psycho lineage of slasher films, particularly in the dual identities that reside within a single, featureless figure. Visually though, Bava’s film has more in common with Michael Powell’s psychological thriller Peeping Tom, as vividly clashing colours wage wars across his expressionistic mise-en-scene.
Shocking jolts of red bursting through the mise-en-scène, especially in these unusually vivid mannequins – like humans drenched in blood and sex.
There may not be a more appropriate setting for such a transgressive display of stylistic bravado than the fashion house of creatively brutal murders which Bava presents us with here. Aggressively eye-catching aesthetics are just as important to him as it is to this ensemble of models and designers, with its green, pink, purple, and blue lighting setups turning dressing rooms and hallways into a Technicolor fever dream. Sometimes these lights pulse rhythmically along with the suspenseful pace of the scene, like a silent ticker counting down to the next murder, and in one shot Bava even backlights the silhouette of an outreached hand against a wall, turning the killer into a Nosferatu-like figure. The boldest visual choice here though is by far the prominent red palette bursting through in unusually vibrant mannequins, curtains, costumes, and set decorations. Its significance isn’t hard to pick out in a narrative that so blatantly features bloody murders and sexual perversities.
A Nosferatu-like hand reaching out across a wall – expressionism in its visuals and references.Bava’s camera wanders from room to room, soaking in the lighting and production design with eerie anticipation.
Supplementing Bava’s outrageous production design is his rolling camera, tracking through his dangerously stunning sets with an air of anticipation about it, at times quietly swinging from side to side as if keeping an anxious lookout. It is even active in the masterfully creative opening credits right at the start, moving across frozen tableaux of the cast striking poses like the models they are playing in the film, or perhaps like the disposable figurines Bava himself is using them as in his violently murderous plot. It is evident that he didn’t cast them for their talent, after all.
Few films have opening credits this beautifully inventive, as Bava’s camera tracks across these actors striking poses.
Much like Hitchcock there is also a distinct objectification of the human body in the camerawork, not so much gazing with sexual intent than to give us the cold perspective of a killer. With equal fascination, Bava also lingers on ordinary items given extraordinary significance within the narrative. As several characters eye off and swirl around a handbag containing the scandalous diary like a slow seduction, his point-of-view shots come at the object from several angles at a time, uneasily anticipating one of them to snatch it away.
A Hitchcockian focus on objects of desire, and a particularly effective shot here keeping the fashion show in the background of it all.
In the hands of almost anyone else, Blood and Black Lace could have easily been an utter failure. There is little that is redeeming about this screenplay of absurd logic leaps, and yet the audacity and tension of Bava’s expressive cinematic style is impossible to argue with. This is a giallo director who loves his pulp and lifts it up on the highest artistic pedestal, and in this dramatic inconsistency we find a wholly unique vision of horror as a genre that, for better and for worse, can reach across the full spectrum of cultured and trashy tastes.
Blood and Black Lace is currently available to stream on Tubi.
At one point in the final act of Aguirre, the Wrath of God, after each member of Don Lope de Aguirre’s expedition has either succumbed to the ruthless Peruvian wilderness or their own madness, one of them makes note of seeing a wooden ship lodged high up in the branches of a tree. Another brushes it off as a hallucination, and we may believe that to be the case, until we cut right to that surreal image.
Up until this point, Werner Herzog has held back from submerging us into the confusion of his explorers, grounding the piece in handheld camerawork that allows us to see them as they are – an absurd band of conquistadors who are dressed more appropriately for the royal courts of 16th century Spain than the unforgiving jungles of South America. And yet in this moment, at the peak of their insanity, this boat perched in a tree forces us to reconsider our own assessment of reality. If it is real, then this is a fearsome demonstration of the forest’s true destructive capability. If it isn’t, then these men are mentally too far gone to navigate their way home, let alone to the fabled country of El Dorado.
A hint of surrealism – is this vision a demonstration of nature’s raw power or humanity’s confounding delusion?
Above them, low-hanging clouds shroud rocky mountains with steep slopes dropping into thick, verdant jungles. High-pitched choral harmonies accompany these epic images, and yet there is something off about this music. In fact, these aren’t voices at all, but rather a choir-organ hypnotically ringing out an inhuman drone, lingering in the uncanny valley of sound. This may have once been a spiritual realm, but God has long abandoned this part of His creation. Now, it has grown into a dense mass of foliage, broken up only by coursing brown rivers which can always be heard even when they are not visible. This domain of natural chaos does not stand down peacefully for foreigners trying to introduce their own ideas of order.
The camera tilting down a Peruvian mountain in the opening shot as an inhuman choir rings out, before settling on the trail of conquistadors and nobles hiking a dangerous path.
Leading the cast as the delusional Aguirre is Klaus Kinski, whose pale blue eyes seem to be both glassed over as if in a trance, and widened in sheer, haunted terror. The combination of both these expressions suggests a man who quietly registers the danger around him, and yet who cannot help but bury his fear deep into his subconscious, lest it should distract from his own ambition.
The overgrown branches, trunks, and vines of his environment frequently obstruct and crowd out frames, consuming Aguirre and his fellow conquistadors in the rainforest’s overgrown vegetation as they try to hold farcical trials and elections. Herzog often blocks them in staggered compositions, sketching out their disorientation which only serves to fuel their self-defeating acts of meaningless violence. They burn down a village with no clear purpose, kill a native when he expresses ignorance of the Christian bible, and push their only horse off the raft when they start to find it annoying. Even the diary entries which have structured this narrative through an organised measurement of time are eventually lost, as one man drinks the ink thinking it is medicine. In a pathetic attempt to reinvigorate the spirits of his men, Aguirre encourages his musical companion to play his pan flute, but this breathy, jaunty tune simply feels like a cruel taunt as it underscores rhythmic montages of the sprawling jungle.
The thick, verdant vegetation, low-lying clouds, and brown rivers at direct odds with these Spanish invaders. This seems to be an important text for Francis Ford Coppola in the production of Apocalypse Now.
In bookending this film with two all-time magnificent shots, Herzog contrasts the start and end of Aguirre’s maddening journey. No longer can he sit and be awed by the terror of his environment – now, he is completely consumed by his own ego, and Herzog’s dizzying 360 shot effectively turns him into the centre of his own world. Around him, the monkeys of the forest snatch away the remaining supplies, and the bodies of his companions drift away down the river to decompose. In these final seconds, all at once, nature has never been so frightening, and humanity has never been so stubbornly delusional.
A 360-degree tracking shot circling Aguirre’s meagre raft in the very last shot, isolating him as a god in his own mind, destined to perish like the others.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God is currently streaming on SBS On Demand.
The field of psychoanalysis has come a long way since the days of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, but there may not be so many specialists in the decades since who would make for as compelling drama as that which David Cronenberg plays out in A Dangerous Method. It comes at a stage in the director’s career when he is finding other expressions for his cerebral fascinations in humanity’s most primal fears and desires beyond his renowned displays of shocking body horror. Here, he opts for a quieter, thoughtfully staged interrogation of similar questions around instinct, sexuality, and repression – or at least, of respected historical men professionally and personally involved in such studies.
Joining Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender to round out the trifecta of founding psychoanalysts in A Dangerous Method is Keira Knightley, playing Jung’s patient-turned-colleague, Sabina Spielren. When she first arrives at his research hospital in Zürich, she is mentally broken and suffering from hysteria. There is a lot being asked of Knightley in this role, and in her erratic tics, outbursts, and overdone Russian accent, she doesn’t quite pull it all together. In his remarkable restraint, Fassbender more than compensates for his co-star’s weaknesses though, taking centre stage in a wrestle between refined judgement and primal impulse, or what Freud might call the superego and id.
In treating Spielren, Jung resorts to Freudian treatments of dream interpretation and word association, setting up an educational connection between himself and the founding father of psychoanalysis early on. Theirs is a tumultuous relationship that Fassbender and Mortensen relish every second of in lengthy discussions and disagreements, though in his marvellous depth of field and blocking Cronenberg never lets these dialogue-heavy scenes become so inert as to grow turgid. Split diopter lenses frequent the first half of A Dangerous Method, dividing the foregrounds and backgrounds in therapy sessions that reveal a disconnection between Jung and his patients. In telling his patients to keep their back to him as they speak, he avoids letting his presence inhibit upon their natural state, though in setting up a physical distance between them he also saves himself from engaging too closely.
Cronenberg’s deep focus cinematography allowing us these crisp, delicate compositions, bringing together wonderful blocking and gorgeous period decor.
It is when Jung and Freud first meet that such barriers begin to break down. The two lose track of time in their very first conversation together, picking each other’s brains for 13 hours straight, though there are irreconcilable differences between their methods. To Freud, sexuality is at the core of the human subconscious, hidden beneath layers of restrained inhibition. To Jung, the unconscious consists of broader, perhaps even mystical elements, and is not at odds with any individual’s conscious ego, but rather supplements it. The aesthetic distinction between both methodologies is evident in Cronenberg’s period decor – Freud’s office is an intricate clutter of books, modern art, cabinets, and statuettes from a diverse range of ancient cultures, crowding out the mise-en-scène with a chaotic sort of intelligence. The neat minimalism of Jung’s workspaces is its inverse, and might even by described by Freud as an image of repression.
The clutter and detail in Freud’s office is marvellous – a strong sense of character through production design.
What ensues from this clash of psychoanalysts is a complex web of transference, particularly as Jung and Spielren submit to the sexual desires brought about by Freud’s dangerous therapeutic method – the talking cure. In meeting an acolyte of Freud who unashamedly began a sexual relationship with a patient and submits to all his most hedonistic impulses, Jung is pushed over the line. Later, another brand of transference emerges in the paternal relationship between Freud and Jung, pertinent to their discussions around father complexes whereby one generation of men is killed by their younger counterparts.
It is a layered screenplay that Cronenberg constructs here, and one that draws a fascinatingly direct line between such reserved historical figures and their observations of emotionally charged human nature. There is no body horror to be found here, and yet Cronenberg reveals that his work is defined less by a disturbing visual style, and more by an ability to draw out a raw vulnerability from within his characters. Then again, perhaps all it took was a filmmaker with an eye for visceral carnal transgressions to find that perverse side to Freud and Jung.
Neatly curated production design all throughout. Cronenberg isn’t know for his exquisitely beautiful visuals, but he shows it off as just another tool in his filmmaker’s arsenal here.
A Dangerous Method is currently available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, Google Play, and Amazon Prime Video.
Michael Haneke continues his use of unsettling, open-ended mysteries to provoke both his characters and viewers into unresolved frustration in The White Ribbon, sending them on a search for answers that never materialise. It is a large ensemble that sprawls out across its bleak, restrained narrative, consisting of largely archetypal figures – most notably the Baron, the Priest, and the Doctor. These men represent wealth, religion, and intelligentsia, and together they enforce strict rules over the women, farmers, and children of the town.
We are first introduced to the narrative by the voiceover of an elderly schoolteacher describing a parable he isn’t sure reflects the truth in every detail, but which he believes may “cast a new light on the goings-on in this country.” The setting is a rural German village on the precipice of World War I. There is no need for any further contextual elaboration from the narrator.
Haneke’s has always been a formal master and a stylist second – but not so much here. The White Ribbon is his most visually stunning film in its black-and-white photography and impeccable blocking. Stunning compositions all round in these wide, distant shots.
At first the collection of unfortunate, unusual incidents that take place in the town seem like sheer bad luck. Maybe the wire that tripped the Doctor’s horse and sent him to hospital was supposed to be a harmless prank. Maybe the farmer’s wife who fell through rotten floorboards was just being careless. Some events can be more easily explained, like the grieving husband who hangs himself. But still, there is a strange aura of uncertainty around this village that only seems to grow. Suspicion is cast on the children, who exhibit strange behaviour. They leer at grown-ups accusingly, who then in turn deliver cruel, moralistic punishments. One girl seems to possess supernatural premonitions of these events – or perhaps she is really aware of some plot the adults don’t know about.
The children of The White Ribbon are truly chilling – leering quietly, as if biding their time through beatings and lectures.
The Priest resolves that tying white ribbons around the arms of the children will remind them of their purity, a fruitless bid for them to remain innocent. Yet these meaningless symbols are at odds with the adults’ treatment of the children. A boy who steals another’s flute is violently beaten by his father. One boy who confesses to masturbating has his arms tied to his bed. Directly after this scene, we catch the Doctor in the act of adultery with the midwife. In truth, it is these men who are the hypocritical, self-righteous sinners of the town. The children’s innocence is under threat from no one but the men who claim they are trying to preserve it.
As the breakout of World War I marks the final act of the film, we are once again reminded of the larger global catastrophe that is mirroring the smaller ones taking place in this town. This war to end all wars was an act of violence by men in positions of power trying to protect their families and countrymen, but it only ended up hurting the innocent. This widespread destruction of innocence traumatised a generation of German youths who would grow up to cause an even greater conflict. Haneke doesn’t offer specific answers about who has been tearing the town apart from within, but he does suggest that these occurrences are a result of the adults’ corruption. A passage from the bible left at the scene of a vicious beating of a child paints this out clearly.
“For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of their parents’ sins to the third and fourth generation.”
Still, most of the men and women of this town go on in their harsh ways, refusing to accept the possibility that the children are learning cruelty, not discipline.
“Despite the strange events that had haunted the village, we thought of ourselves as united in the belief that life in our community was God’s will, and worth living.”
Haneke frames his setting in The White Ribbon like no other film of his. An immense darkness closing in around the edges, or carving inky black shapes into his compositions.
The few that do recognise the changing behaviours of the children usually go ignored. When the Baroness tells her husband she is taking his children away from these surroundings dominated by “malice, envy, apathy and brutality” and leaving him for another man, his only concern is whether she has slept with this new suitor yet. Later, the midwife learns the truth behind the atrocities, but she quickly disappears. The truth is powerless against whatever is working behind the scenes here. Perhaps we are better off not knowing.
As most of Haneke’s films are, The White Ribbon is formally rigorous in its multitude of motifs. The titular ribbons, the closed doors hiding acts too terrible to see, the parakeets as mirrors of the children’s trauma – Haneke uses symbols to hint at something truly insidious, but just as the film never plunges into the barbarism of World War I, he often leads us up to the doorstep of evil only to cut away at the last second. He keeps us at a distance from his characters. Whenever we do see something horrific, like a mutilated bird or a dead woman, we never get a reaction shot following it. Emotion never immediately spills to the surface, but the cumulative effect of this repression does inevitably burst out in angry, violent demonstrations.
Brutal imagery, but with a cold, detached distance.
Haneke is not known for his striking images, but the stark, monochrome beauty of The White Ribbon leaps out in practically every shot. Though he isn’t averse to close-ups, Haneke’s wide shots are worth marvelling at for their strong compositions of sharp black and white hues battling it out for dominance of the image. In one scene the darkness of the night smothers the frame, only to be pierced with the blinding light of a fire billowing out from the barn. In another, the narration recalls how the snowy landscape “hurt the eyes”, though dark silhouettes of farmers can still be seen trudging through it. There is detail in the mise-en-scène right down to the costumes, as the opposing shades will clutter tableaus of crowds in the village square, balancing each other out.
One of Haneke’s greatest shots – a bright white fire burning in an inky darkness.Bleak minimalism in greyscale landscapes, a reflection of the austere community.
Though The White Ribbon is mostly without music, the single exception comes in the final scene set in the church, where the children’s choir sings a hymn. It is an appropriate end to a parable that hints at, without ever explaining, how evil is born through puritanical chastisement, hypocrisy, and apathy. Haneke’s masterpiece is full of tension between the pull of innocence and corruption, but its lack of clear resolution is precisely what continues to make it so compelling.
Carl Theodor Dreyer in the immaculate blocking – frigid detachment between character, and a wonderful symmetry.
The White Ribbon is currently available to stream on Beamafilm and Shudder.
There is a quiet, simple dichotomy at the heart of Kes to which the complexities of life in its 1960s Yorkshire working-class community are boiled down. Ken Loach approaches this not with the intent to distort reality, but rather to filter it through a singular perspective – for fifteen-year-old Billy Casper, every force in his life is on one side of a tug-o-war between subjugation and freedom. Sometimes people surprise him and reveal nuances he doesn’t expect, but those instances aren’t so common as to majorly impact his worldview. For the most part, his teachers, employment officers, and family are boxing him into rigid structures he doesn’t quite fit. In his young falcon, Kes, he doesn’t just find a genuine passion. He finds a set of values he can aspire to.
“Hawks can’t be tamed. They’re manned. It’s wild and it’s fierce and it’s not bothered about anybody.”
Using children as tragic representations of innocence in unjust societies has been at the core of neorealism since the Italians took to it in the 40s, but with the additional symbol of Kes as a being of pure, fearless independence, Loach sets up magnificent stakes to Billy’s emotional arc. As he stands on the precipice of adulthood, being forced to consider manual labour and office jobs he has no interest in, we recognise the immense fragility of his innocence, and the significance of Kes in preserving that.
Wide open fields play host to this bonding between a boy and his animal companion, a very different look to the dirtied school yards and buildings.
The time we spend in open fields with the only sign of civilisation being the town shoved far in the background are the most freeing in the film. The image of Kes flying through the sky without confines makes for a striking contrast to the constant suggestions that Billy go into coal mining after school, submerging himself beneath the ground in confined spaces, though these offerings of escapism are only ever fleeting. Loach is at his strongest when depicting the gritty detail of this blue-collar South Yorkshire town, letting its smokestacks and industrial structures tower over Billy in some of the film’s strongest compositions, while he lingers in the foreground trying to find peace among secluded bushes and trees. The impoverished but narrow-minded community that fill in this harsh, rundown setting are just as vivid in their authenticity, the thick brogue of these mostly non-professional actors rendering some lines almost incomprehensible.
The industrial mining structures looming in backgrounds – a raw sense of setting in superb compositions.
Within the rigorous education system of 1960s England, Loach surrounds Billy with a staff of teachers as regressively strict as they are sadistic, furiously wondering why their disciplinary tactics are not motivating the students to succeed. Child actor David Bradley is a consistently strong force all through Kes, but it is especially in these interactions where we see the struggle of a boy disillusioned by the path they are trying to set him on. When adults lecture and reprimand him, there is a visible emotional detachment on his face, and when he is forced to speak, he can’t bring himself to make eye contact. He is not looking to cause trouble, but he is ready to defend himself against accusations of laziness, and like any other teenage boy he is easily distracted, climbing goal posts during P.E. and daydreaming in the middle of class.
The students around him also assert their independence in small, rebellious acts, selling cigarettes between themselves even as the headmaster rails against their misbehaviour and complains about their generation. For the P.E. teacher, disobedience is simply an excuse to enact brutal and degrading punishments on kids who make easy targets, turning on the cold water while Billy is in the shower after class and refusing to let him out.
Loach’s visual style doesn’t often hit you with jaw-dropping compositions, but it is minimalistic and practical – authenticity in the streaks and poor maintenance of worn-down buildings.
In the school’s English teacher though, there seems to be a rare glimpse of hope that Billy might just be understood by someone else the way he understands Kes. Mr Farthing is not a character we expect such genuine compassion from, and yet as he makes an effort outside of school hours to visit his student and learn about his interests, we also begin to see a brighter future for Billy. But such optimism is not destined to last long in this stifling environment. Loach is dedicated to cinematic realism, but he also recognises the power that his symbols hold, and in bringing the two together, the cruel unpredictability of life ultimately destroys any faith we place in the latter. In watching this boy’s youthful idealism seep away with each harsh blow, Kes becomes a heartbreakingly bitter drama, raw with the pain of realising that there is no great liberty in becoming an adult – just another few decades of soul-sucking, arbitrary social structures.
Kes is currently available to stream on The Criterion Channel, and to rent or buy on iTunes and Amazon Prime Video.
What Will Likely Win:The Power of the Dog. Sometimes it is the less interesting crowd-pleaser that trumps art at the Oscars, and there has been a sudden surge behind CODA recently. But The Power of the Dog has more going for it in the eyes of the Academy voters – serious, moving, affirming, technically impressive, and not overly controversial.
What Should Win:Dune. Truth be told, there are about six nominees that I would be fine with taking the big award, but Dune is the greatest achievement of them all. Not that it matters all that much, but if the Academy is trying to make itself relevant again then giving this award to such a big blockbuster would be one way to do that.
What’s Been Snubbed:The French Dispatch. We could also slot The Tragedy of Macbeth in here, both being the highest artistic accomplishments of the year, but no showing for Oscars-favourite Wes Anderson anywhere at all is the bigger shock.
The Power of the Dog (Directed by Jane Campion)
Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza)
Kenneth Branagh (Belfast)
Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog)
Steven Spielberg (West Side Story)
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car)
What Will Likely Win: Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog. Academy voters are itching to recognise her after she missed out in this category for The Piano in 1994.
What Should Win: Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog. It is an evenly balanced category this year, but Campion’s direction just slightly transcends the others.
What’s Been Snubbed: Denis Villeneuve for Dune. You could also put in Joel Coen for The Tragedy of Macbeth or Wes Anderson for The French Dispatch, both of which might be better films. But to see Dune nominated in so many categories yet miss out here is particularly strange.
What Will Likely Win: Will Smith for King Richard. It’s not close to the best performance of the year, but voters really want to give him some sort of recognition, and this might be the closest he’s going to get to what the Oscars consider a “worthy” performance.
What Should Win: Benedict Cumberbatch for The Power of the Dog. He plays against type as a gruff, mean rancher with a vulnerable underside, and easily delivers one of his best screen performances.
What’s Been Snubbed: Oscar Isaac for The Card Counter. He is intense, exacting, and dark in this performance, but maybe a little too much for the traditional Academy voter.
What Will Likely Win: Jessica Chastain for The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Again, this seems to be the year where the Academy hands out trophies to those who haven’t got one yet, and Chastain’s performance as televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker is entirely transformational.
What Should Win: Kristen Stewart for Spencer. It is a bizarre, psychological performance that only Stewart could have pulled off with her brooding screen persona, but this portrayal of Princess Diana might be a little too out-there for the Academy.
What’s Been Snubbed: Frances McDormand for The Tragedy of Macbeth. Surprising, given how much awards attention has been lauded on her in recent years. But maybe the thinking is that it’s just time to give others a turn.
Jessica Chastain as Tammy Faye Bakker in The Eyes of Tammy Faye.
Best Supporting Actor
Ciarin Hinds (Belfast)
Troy Kotsur (CODA)
Jesse Plemons (The Power of the Dog)
J. K. Simmons (Being the Ricardos)
Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Power of the Dog)
What Will Likely Win: Troy Kotsur for CODA. An emotional, heart-warming performance that offers decent representation within the Academy, even if the movie itself is less than outstanding.
What Should Win: Kodi-Smit McPhee for The Power of the Dog. It isn’t the strongest category this year, so McPhee doesn’t have too much trouble coming out on top for his quiet, sensitive performance.
What’s Been Snubbed: Mike Faist for West Side Story. I haven’t quite seen a Riff like him before, playing the gang leader as viciously self-destructive boy lashing out at a society that he knows no other way of interacting with. His dancing and musical talents don’t hurt either.
Mike Faist as Riff in West Side Story.
Best Supporting Actress
Jessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter)
Ariane DeBose (West Side Story)
Judi Dench (Belfast)
Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog)
Aunjanue Ellis (King Richard)
What Will Likely Win: Ariana Debose for West Side Story. She is vibrant, compelling, and carries so much screen presence – this performance can’t be faulted.
What Should Win: Ariana Debose for West Side Story. No issues with the Academy’s pick on this one if all goes as expected.
What’s Been Snubbed: Kathryn Hunter for The Tragedy of Macbeth. Hunter singlehandedly reinvents the concept of witches with her contortionist physicality and eerie vocal work.
What Will Likely Win:Licorice Pizza. It’s breezy, funny, light, but is also written with such tenderness in its vignette structure, dipping us into the 1970s San Fernando Valley.
What Should Win:The Worst Person in the World. The chapter breaks, the voiceover, the dialogue – everything about this screenplay is magnificently constructed, playing out like a coming-of-age novel for those approaching 30.
What’s Been Snubbed:The Card Counter. Paul Schrader is one of the best screenwriters of all-time, and his character studies are nothing less than remarkable. This may be a little too understated, cerebral, and gloomy for the Oscars though.
Licorice Pizza (Screenplay by Paul Thomas Anderson)
Best Adapted Screenplay
CODA
Drive My Car
Dune
The Lost Daughter
The Power of the Dog
What Will Likely Win:The Power of the Dog. It isn’t always a guarantee, but often the Best Picture winner will take home one of the screenplay awards. If all goes as expected there, then it should take this category too.
What Should Win:Dune. The magnificent feat of translating this book to the screen shouldn’t be underestimated. Other screenwriters have tried and failed due to the sheer scale and complexity. In years to come it will stand tall among the great cinematic narratives.
What’s Been Snubbed:The Green Knight. This screenplay moves poetically and rhythmically, offering fantastically lyrical monologues to great actors, and effectively bridging the wide gap between ancient Arthurian legend and the cinema screen.
What Will Likely Win:Drive My Car (Japan). The groundswell behind this has been quiet but powerful. It only makes sense for it to win here given its Best Picture nomination.
What Should Win:The Hand of God (Italy). The best foreign film of the year comes from the tremendously skilled Italian auteur Paolo Sorrentino, bringing his tragic and playful childhood to cinematic life.
What’s Been Snubbed:Titane (France). Not that I would ever expect the Academy to go for this disturbing, auto-erotic body horror.
The Hand of God (Directed by Paolo Sorrentino)
Best Original Score
Don’t Look Up
Dune
Encanto
Parallel Mothers
The Power of the Dog
What Will Likely Win:Dune. Hans Zimmer is an Oscars-favourite, and let’s be honest – only Jonny Greenwood’s score for The Power of the Dog comes close to matching the musical genius of this.
What Should Win:Dune. The man invented entirely new instruments for the film. Just give it to him already.
What’s Been Snubbed:Spencer. The stronger Jonny Greenwood score of the year, and the only one that could have really given Dune a run for its money with its chaotic, syncopated jazz perfectly underscoring Princess Diana’s mental breakdown.
What Will Likely Win: ‘No Time to Die’ from No Time to Die. The last Bond film was a cultural phenomenon, and this song has mulled around in the public consciousness since its release two years ago.
What Should Win: ‘No Time to Die’ from No Time to Die. Billie Eilish’s song might be the best of the Daniel Craig era – after ‘Skyfall’ of course. It incorporates the main Bond theme into its instrumentation in such an unexpected and wonderful way.
What’s Been Snubbed: ‘So May We Start’ from Annette. I know, everyone wants to talk about Bruno, and Annette doesn’t exactly have Oscar vibes. But it is an all-round more ambitious movie, not to mention musically.
No Time to Die (Song written and performed by Billie Eilish)
Best Sound
Belfast
Dune
No Time to Die
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story
What Will Likely Win:Dune. In virtually every other awards show this season, Dune has swept this category. Don’t expect any upsets here.
What Should Win:Dune. This epic world of foreign plants and diverse cultures is built just as much through the intricate sound as through its production design – the sounds of sand worms tunnelling beneath the ground, supernatural voices, and the twinkling of spice in the air are all entirely visceral.
What’s Been Snubbed:Last Night in Soho. Edgar Wright’s editing and sound design go hand in hand, and as he pushes beyond his comfort zone with a straight horror film, the eerie atmosphere he builds aurally is worth recognising.
Last Night in Soho (Sound by Ben Meechan, Jeremy Price, and Colin Nicolson)
Best Production Design
Dune
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story
What Will Likely Win:Dune. The detail and scale of Villeneuve’ space opera is epic and awe-inspiring – a colossal triumph of world building through production design.
What Should Win:Dune. It might be transcended in raw beauty by The Tragedy of Macbeth, but we can attribute that a little more to the cinematography. Dune is the slightly larger success in this category.
What’s Been Snubbed:The French Dispatch. It is unbelievable that it wasn’t nominated in any categories, but this one most of all. Truth be told, it also should have won with its Jacques Tati-inspired architecture and gorgeously pastel colour palettes.
The French Dispatch (Production design by Adam Stockhausen)
Best Cinematography
Dune
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
West Side Story
What Will Likely Win:Dune. See a pattern forming? I will be very surprised if it doesn’t dominate these technical categories.
What Should Win:The Tragedy of Macbeth. As excellent as Dune is in this department, Joel Coen’s masterpiece lives and dies by its expressionistic lighting, the quality of which hasn’t been seen in a long time.
What’s Been Snubbed:Passing. Eduard Grau proves to be a master of camera focus and composition in this black-and-white drama, crafting one of the most aesthetically stunning films of the year.
The Tragedy of Macbeth (Cinematography by Bruno Delbonnel)
What Will Likely Win:The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Without its hair and makeup, there is no Tammy Faye.
What Should Win:Dune. Perhaps one of the few technical categories that Dune isn’t set on dominating, even if it deserves it for the detailed character designs.
What’s Been Snubbed:The Green Knight. Even beyond the impeccable design of the Green Knight itself with its bark-like skin and intensely detailed prosthetics, Alicia Vikander passes off as two different women here – and it isn’t just because of her excellent performance.
Dune (Makeup and hairstyling by Donald Mowat, Love Larson, and Eva von Bahr)
What Will Likely Win:Cruella. It doesn’t just have good costumes. This movie is about costumes. And that might just be the favourite movie genre of many costume designers.
What Should Win:Dune. See above – the character designs are integral to Villeneuve’s world and artistic vision.
What’s Been Snubbed:The French Dispatch. It is a strong category this year so there are no major complaints, but Anderson’s regular collaborator Milena Canonero does work here that melds so beautifully into his quaint interpretation of 20th century France. It might be a little too easy to take for granted.
Cruella (Costume design by Jenny Beavan)
Best Film Editing
Don’t Look Up
Dune
King Richard
The Power of the Dog
Tick, Tick… Boom!
What Will Likely Win:Dune. An easy win.
What Should Win:Dune. There is such a subtle precision to not just the action sequences, but also in the editing of supernatural phenomena, purposefully slipping in discontinuous shots that don’t quite match up to throw us off.
What’s Been Snubbed:Last Night in Soho. It’s Edgar Wright doing all his usual kinetic transitions and match cuts, but with a disorientating psychological twist. A perfect match of style and content, though the Oscars don’t traditionally go for horror films.
What Will Likely Win:Dune. Is seeing Dune all over this page getting boring yet? Prepare for the same sort of repetition on Oscars night.
What Should Win:Dune. Its visual effects are unintrusive and fit organically into the practical elements of Villeneuve’s world, while still being absolutely mind-blowing. A tricky balance to strike.
What’s Been Snubbed:The Green Knight. Another film that merges visual effects perfectly with production design and practical cinematography to build an entirely new, detailed world. Also, those giants are breathtaking.
The Green Knight (Visual effects by Kev Cahill, Tim Nagle, and Eric Saindon)
The Oscars Ceremony will be televised live (AEDT) on Seven and streaming live on 7plus nationally from 11am-2pm on Monday, 28th March.
Inside the high-rise Warsaw apartment building of the Dekalog, there lives an entire community of strangers and sinners. They may not all know each other’s names or understand troubles beyond their own, but every day they pass by each other in the foyer, lift, and street, nodding politely and exchanging a few words before moving on. The perspective that Krzysztof Kieslowski grants us into their lives in his anthology film series is omniscient. Behind each door in this towering complex is a new morality tale with some basis in the Ten Commandments, though the didacticism is rarely so blunt as those single-line imperatives.
Theological Renaissance art is his inspiration, and with that in mind he goes about creating a cinematic equivalent to a series of paintings depicting the commandments, though with a distinctly more modern, ambiguous flavour. Just as significant as the maintenance of these commandments is the difficulty of upholding them with complicated contemporary pressures. The history, culture, law, relationships, and technology of late-Communist Poland manifest in unexpected ways, and at the centre of them all is that giant, concrete piece of architecture, making a statement of both insulated loneliness and hidden interconnectedness.
A giant, austere housing project as common location across the episodes, an apt representation of interconnected neighbours living private, sinful lives.
With this apartment building acting as a common setting for the entire series, Kieslowski goes about using an array of different cinematographers to imbue each episode with a distinct style, emphasising the individuality of each perspective they bring. The effect is powerful, if a little inconsistent – some dialogue-heavy episodes do not feature the same cinematic bravado as the more aesthetically defined instalments, but there still always remains a steady awareness of how they all fit together. Though Dekalog: One and Three are both set in the freezing winter, the latter has a distinctly more festive tone in the red lighting and mise-en-scène, and Dekalog: Five acts as a visual highlight of the series in its jaundiced, sickly colouring, turning Warsaw into a rotten wasteland.
Entirely distinct visions of Warsaw, Poland through different episodes, each one offering a separate artistic perspective to suit its commandment.
In spite of these stylistic differences, there is a formal consistency in the specific motifs and themes which emerge across their studies of moral duty, faith, and parenthood. The family unit is an especially important foundation for Kieslowski’s moral tales, as mothers and fathers constantly fumble in their attempts to raise their children. Milk acts as a symbol of nourishing life here, suggesting the ways in which motherhood and innocence might play into these situations whether as an attempt to breastfeed a baby or a carton that has gone sour. Where parents aren’t making mistakes, they are often entirely absent, leaving behind spiritual holes begging to be filled in by God the Father and the Mother Mary. Dekalog: One does well to set this up with a hopeful depiction of Our Lady of Częstochowa in its conclusion, and it is similarly tied up in the final episode where two brothers are led down the road of Cain and Abel without the guidance of their now-deceased father.
Mothers and fathers often act as a foundation of Kieslowski’s moral tales, whether they are flawed humans, venerated religious icons, or absent figures.
Perhaps the most potent recurring motif though as that of the mysterious, silent spectator played by Artur Barciś in eight of the ten episodes. He never speaks, but he is often present at key moments where major decisions must be made. Though he often goes unnoticed, every so often he catches the eye of a character who finds themselves inexplicably disturbed or haunted by his presence, whether he is appearing as a tram driver, a university student, or a homeless man. He is not a force of good or evil, but much like us, he hangs over this series as an omniscient figure, seeing into the souls of these characters but never intervening. For all its grounding in the authentic history and culture of 1980s Poland, the Dekalog remains a mystical piece of theological cinema, holding us back from accepting any individual narrative as the singular truth by instead delivering a more transcendent perspective akin to that of an all-seeing deity.
Artur Barciś as the silent witness in eight of the ten episodes. Is he an angel, demon, or simply an audience surrogate, pushing in on these stories with his omniscient, unwavering gaze?
Dekalog: One – “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”
There are a series of bizarre, almost supernatural occurrences that presage the devastating blow which Dekalog: One delivers in its final act, but atheistic professor Krzysztof is not one to consider the meaning of clues or symbols beyond those which scientific studies tell him. His son, Paweł, possesses a similar curiosity about the world, though he is often only left confused when his father and his devout aunt, Irena, offer two separate paths to find the answers he seeks.
Kieslowski is heavily symbolic in his imagery, most evidently in his portrayal of Krzysztof’s computer as an ethereal, holy force. It illuminates Krzysztof and Paweł’s apartment with a dim, green glow, and although it represents the rigid rules of science, there is still a mystical sentience to its actions, seemingly turning on of its own accord and mysteriously telling them “I am ready.”
Krzysztof’s downfall comes not from using its calculations, but rather placing so much faith in them that he rejects all other signs which contradict them. When a bottle of blue ink topples over without reason and spreads across his paper like an ominous, expanding lake, he brushes it off. Neither do the sirens outside alert him to anything wrong, or the talk of a local child going missing. Gradually, anxiety sets in, and he finally reaches a reckoning with his faithlessness when his worst fears are confirmed by his own two eyes.
Running from the green glow of the computer and the icy blue lake where his nightmares have manifested, an empty church offers itself for his outpouring of anger and grief. The venerated icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa that stands up on the altar acts as somewhat of a substitute for the absence of a mother figure elsewhere in this episode, and as he topples tables and candles, she remains standing straight, bearing the brunt of his grief with only a few drops of wax trickling down her face like tears. Dekalog: One is particularly didactic in its narrative, and yet Kieslowski’s beautifully spiritual metaphors imbues it with a remarkable visual power that underscores the crisis of faith at its centre.
Dekalog: Two – “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
In a hospital room where water drips down cracked and peeling walls, a man’s life hangs in the balance. The sound design might reminisce Tarkovsky in the ever-present trickling, but the abstract cutaways are truly Kieslowski, using micro representations of humanity to bring spiritual stakes to Andrzej’s survival. Later in this episode we will watch a bee crawl up out of a glass of preserved strawberries, offering him a hopeful symbol of rebirth as he returns from the “beyond”, but until then, it is a journey of frightening uncertainty.
For Andrzej’s wife, Dorota, his survival will determine the fate of her unborn baby. Should he live, then she will choose to abort it as it belongs to another man; if he dies, then she will become the mother she always wanted to be. It is a torturous situation she finds herself in, and in small outbursts she acts out, snapping the leaves of a houseplant and pushing a glass off a table just so she can assert some kind of agency. In her mind, the major decision regarding her pregnancy is beyond her control given its dependency on Andrzej’s survival, and so as if to place it in the hands of the doctor, she demands a prognosis.
It is here that the second commandment manifests in an understated manner, in which the doctor falsely swears an oath that Andrzej is almost completely likely to die. In contrast to his first episode, Kieslowski allows a little more of an understanding into the mind of the primary ‘sinner’, and as such Dekalog: Two takes a slightly more nuanced position in understanding how the modern age continues to complicate these ancient laws.
Dekalog: Three – “Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy.”
At first, it does not seem like Dekalog: Three carries the same life or death stakes as the previous two episodes. Its narrative is far more subdued, involving us in two ex-lovers’ search for a missing husband on Christmas Eve, though at the same time Kieslowski steps up his visuals in this instalment, using cinematographer Piotr Sobociński to illuminate these icy Polish streets with the red glow of festive lights. Much of the time they appear as pinpoints adorning scraggly Christmas trees, piercing through beautifully austere aerial shots, though every so often Kieslowski will also bounce them off reflective surfaces or illuminate faces in close-ups, making for a beautiful reminder of the religious holiday that the episode takes place over.
It is this Christmas setting that is absolutely integral to Kieslowski’s figurative reading of the commandment his episode is based on. Here, the Sabbath represents any holy day one sets aside to reflect on their own faith and spend time with loved ones, and initially taxi driver Janusz appears to recognise the significance of this in taking time off work. It is when he attends midnight Mass and runs into Ewa, a woman from his past, that he becomes distracted, and the two embark on an Odyssey-like journey to find her husband who has mysteriously disappeared.
On their journey, they encounter a series of minor characters still working on this sacred night, unable to take time off due to the necessity of their jobs, and this pattern subtly underscores Janusz and Ewa’s own fickle distractions. A late-game revelation turns their entire quest on its head as a heavy fog of death and depression gathers over it, but much like other Dekalog episodes, there is also a counterpoint of hope and redemption to tie it off. Though directly contravening the third commandment and abandoning his spiritual duties, surely there is some salvation for Janusz in helping Ewa fulfil her own?
Dekalog: Four – “Honour thy father and thy mother.”
Even considering the moral complexities that have arisen elsewhere in the Dekalog, the fourth episode breaches thornier territory than ever in its study of a Freudian relationship between a father and daughter. Just as there is an absence felt by a deceased mother in the family dynamic of Dekalog: One, Kieslowski again leaves an empty space here with a letter from Michal’s wife, who passed away a few days after the birth of her daughter, Anka. It is only meant to be read after Michal has passed too, but impatient to hear her mother’s words, she opens it prematurely, and suddenly both parent and child find their relationship tested in the most uncomfortable manner.
As the two discuss the possibility that they may not be related, Kieslowski sends them in an elevator right to the bottom of their apartment building, where two candles burn in the darkness like a small chapel. From this point on, Kieslowski’s lighting grows darker, starkly illuminating their apartment with lamps that cast bright beams and shadows across their faces in the midst of arguments and heartfelt pleas. Elsewhere in the unit, a smashed glass door that Michal kicked earlier out of anger sits un-mended, their interior world collapsing around them.
As sinful as his characters are, Kieslowski never condemns them with righteous retribution, but rather takes the time to understand how their flaws are integral parts of their messy humanity. Perhaps our understanding of Anka early on as a drama student with a deep interest in drawing out hidden truths from lies should clue us into her own propensity for falsehoods, but even when this is revealed we don’t find ourselves mad at her. Instead, all we see is a father and daughter trying to figure themselves out, eventually choosing to preserve their own innocent relationship over any secrets that could potentially destroy it.
Dekalog: Five – “Thou shalt not murder.”
When Kieslowski created his Dekalog series with the intention of making ten one-hour episodes, he was pushed by TV Poland to expand two into full-length feature films. Dekalog: Five thus became A Short Film About Killing, as well as the strongest instalment in the series, disturbing our senses in both style and narrative while taking on the Fifth Commandment as its focus.
Read my full review for the theatrical cut of this episode here.
Dekalog: Six – “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
Much like Dekalog: Five, the sixth episode of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Ten Commandments-inspired series was expanded into a feature film, giving us A Short Film About Love. The Hitchcockian setup is very familiar – a man with a telescope spying from their apartment into a neighbour’s unit, developing an unhealthy obsession with their life – and yet in place of a suspenseful mystery leading our young voyeur along, Kieslowski instead absorbs us in a compelling morality play.
Beyond the fact that both Dekalog: Five and Six were extended into full films, they also make fascinating companion pieces for the formal structuring of their narratives, both being marked by a midpoint turn that instigates a total role reversal for a main character in the final minutes.
Read my full review for the theatrical cut of this episode here.
Dekalog: Seven – “Thou shalt not steal.”
As Kieslowski’s camera descends the side of the Warsaw apartment building in the opening shot of Dekalog: Seven, the sound of a child’s screams can be heard coming from one of its units. Ania, the young girl to whom they belong, clearly has issues of her own, but considerations of what might be best for her are not the concerns of the adults in this story. Her mother, Majka, gave birth to her six years ago while at school, but to protect her from the scandal, her own mother, Ewa, put forward a lie that the two were sisters. Now 22-years-old, Majka resolves they are all old enough for the truth to come out, and goes about kidnapping her daughter to meet her real father, Wotjek.
Kieslowki’s understanding of stealing as a sin within this screenplay is fascinating in its complexity. Perhaps what Ewa did was wrong, exerting her possessiveness over something that was not rightfully hers, and yet at the same time it is evident that Majka is not yet matured to properly care for Ania either. There is a fairy tale quality to the kidnapping that seems to pull the two into a delusional, naïve mindset, as mother and daughter escape into woods where a carousel seems to spring forth from overgrown weeds, and later meet up with Wotjek, who now lives in a small house making teddy bears.
It is in his residence where Majka, desperately trying to recreate the family that should have been, begs for her daughter to call her “Mother”, and yet it is simply too much for Ania to grasp. When Ania’s night terrors emerge again, Majka goes about trying to prove that she does have the capability to quell them as well as Ewa, and yet just like her own mother, it is merely an act of selfish reassurance. Whether one can steal something that belongs to them might be a big question here, and yet Kieslowski also uses Dekalog: Seven to consider the rights of those affected beyond the binary “thief and victim” narrative.
Dekalog: Eight – “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.”
Poland’s history feels more immediate here in Dekalog: Eight than in any other instalment of Kieslowski’s series, as the sin in question is one that took place several decades ago during Germany’s occupation of Warsaw. Zofia is a professor of ethics and may in theory be considered the most prepared of any character we have met so far to face questions of integrity, and yet when Elżbieta, a visiting translator, drops in on one of her lectures, a past between them comes to light which begins to wear away at her professional demeanour. In 1943, Elżbieta was a 6-year-old Jewish girl seeking out sanctuary with Zofia’s Catholic family who were also part of the resistance, though after hearing rumours that Elżbieta’s parents were in fact working for the Gestapo, they turned her away.
From God’s eighth commandment, Kieslowski chooses to take the emphasis off “false witness” and place it on “neighbour”, examining the duty of each Christian to not just be honest with friends and strangers, but to accept them as good, honest people as well. Visually, he weaves in shades of green into his mise-en-scène as well, lending an air of natural grace to Zofia’s exercise in the park, and underscoring the two women’s conversation with a merciful renewal in their costuming and the professor’s car. As complicated as their past is together, their efforts to communicate effectively bridge that divide keeping them apart.
In Dekalog: Eight’s understanding of communities as a network of neighbours obligated to help and understand each other, Kieslowski begins to condense broader ideas floating around this series into a cohesive conclusion. The moral dilemma of the doctor and the pregnant woman from episode 2 comes up as a topic in Zofia’s ethics class, and later she acknowledges that they live in the same building as her, where all these stories are set. “Warsaw is a small place,” she states, highlighting the closeness of each life to the others that surround it. When she visits another apartment block, the begrudging man who answers the doors claims that none of his neighbours get along with each other, and while the characters living in Zofia’s complex usually only meet each other tangentially, we still see within this woman an active interest in learning about those around her.
Dekalog: Nine – “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife.”
The main character in Dekalog: Nine is not the transgressor of its primary commandment, and yet the jealousy it implies still weighs heavy in his heart. With the extra emphasis on intimate relations, Kieslowski appropriately makes the most of the apartment block’s architecture and interiors to set scenes of domesticity, shooting his characters through cracks in doorways and reflected in mirrors to both divide and unite them. It also contains some of the strongest images from the series as a whole, in one shot towards the start catching their silhouettes through the building’s glass door against a rainy, blue exterior, coldly isolating them on the border of private and public worlds.
Even in the tight, dark elevator on their way up to their unit, Kieslowski continues to visually separate them with passing lights alternating between their faces, only ever allowing us to see one at a time. A disconnected dynamic is set right away, laying the groundwork for a relationship determined to disintegrate following Roman’s diagnosis of impotence and Hanka’s duplicitous affair. That he has given her permission to cheat on him is negligible – the deception hurts all the same, threatening their marital vow that every intimate part of their lives will be shared together.
By no means is Roman innocent in this situation either. We spend a good deal of time following his sneaking and spying which he also takes some shameful, voyeuristic pleasure from, being unable to perform sexually in the same way as his wife’s lover. With a complex, distant relationship at its core, Dekalog: Nine’s narrative is ripe for superbly staged scenes of tension and conflict, studying the coveting of two men from either side of an extra-marital affair.
Dekalog: Ten – “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods.”
Kieslowski ends his series of contemporary moral fables not with tragedy, but rather with what might almost be considered a dramatic comedy, using Dekalog: Ten to examine the hold of greed over the minds of a pair of brothers. The two couldn’t be more different – where strait-laced businessman Jerzy is strictly no-nonsense, Artur is introduced leading his punk band City Death at a riotous concert, shouting lyrics that are amusingly irreverent and referential to the rest of the series.
“Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill and steal! Commit adultery and covet a whole week long!”
As dissimilar as the brothers may be, having parted ways with each other and their estranged father years ago, they are affected all the same by the discovery of his valuable stamp collection, making them instant millionaires. They also quickly realise that there are men out there with their eyes set on their inheritance, and so the two go about building an intense security system around the apartment. In order to complete a collection of three rare stamps, Jerzy even goes so far as to sell his kidney for the missing piece, quite literally cutting off a piece of his humanity and replacing it with the object of his obsession.
Much like Cain and Abel before them, Jerzy and Artur begin to turn against each other in paranoia, withdrawing from the rekindled connection sparked by their father’s death. Kieslowski does not wish to end the Dekalog with the same disastrous fate that befell those Biblical brothers though. He is an optimist at heart, believing in the potential of humans to reconcile and become better people even if those around them do not. Upon realising that they have simply fallen victim to the crimes of other covetous men, all they can do is laugh at the joyous absurdity of it all – the fruitless sins of humanity, the insignificance of stamps, and the unexpected delight of finding each other again in the midst of it all.
Dekalog is not currently available to stream in Australia.
