I walked into Tristan + Isolde not expecting to enjoy it very much. From the trailers it appeared entirely too much like a page out of the same book as Romeo + Juliet, right down to the stupid “+” in the title. Nevertheless, the demands of Hero Quest and the Holy Grail required my attendance, so I settled comfortably into my seat, determined to see what it was all about and give it a fair hearing. And the results were not nearly so bad as I had led myself to believe.

The story proceeds thusly: The various tribes of Ancient Britain are in a bad way. All of them, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and so forth, are being oppressed by the powerful Irish across the sea. Together they would have little difficulty keeping the Irish at bay, but the King of Ireland (a crafty son of a gun) is fairly good at keeping things fragmented.

As the movie begins, the leaders of the various tribes have gathered in secret to finally form an alliance under the leadership of the best of them: Lord Mark. However, a traitor has tipped off the Irish, and they arrive in force to break things up. In the process, they also kill the parents of young Tristan and Lord Mark’s pregnant wife. Mark himself loses a hand saving Tristan’s life, then takes him home and adopts him.

Years pass, the Irish maintain their position, and Tristan grows into a knight of considerable prowess. Finally, the Irish send out one raid too many after Mark’s womenfolk, and Tristan leads a bold assault on the Irish forces. The Celtic tribes win, but Tristan is poisoned and presumed dead. His grief-stricken comrades drop him in a boat and shove him out into the sea. He floats to Ireland, is discovered by Isolde, daughter of the Irish king, and is nursed back to health. Meanwhile, they (of course) fall madly in love and she deceives him about her identity, claiming to be a mere servant.

Tristan returns from the dead just in time to participate in a tournament that the king of Ireland is holding in hopes of keeping the various tribal leaders at each other’s throats while he rebuilds his forces. The prize is a sizable chunk of land and the king’s daughter . . . and Tristan enters the tournament in the name of Mark, not knowing whose hand he is actually fighting for.

The rest is fairly easy to predict (more or less). Isolde has no choice but to marry Mark, and Tristan has no choice but to let her. They struggle with their feelings for each other, and finally succumb to the lure of adultery. The traitor and the Irish king find out about the affair and use it to break Mark’s newfound unifying power over the other tribes, “stumbling” upon the couple’s final tryst with Mark and the other leaders. Finally, Tristan chooses his loyalty to Mark over his love for Isolde and sacrifices himself to undo the damage they have caused, and all of the main characters live unhappily ever after so that everyone else can live happily ever after.

Despite some decidedly angsty performances, particularly from Tristan, the movie worked quite well as a tragedy of courtly romance in the tradition of Chrétien de Troyes and other royal troubadours of the 10th to 12th centuries. I have only recently been introduced to their works, but already I could see the connections between the movie and the medieval romances. There is a strong sense of inevitable doom hovering over the characters and events thanks to an excellent use of foreshadowing.

When Tristan finally buys the farm, we realize that it had to happen that way. Adulterous couples don’t tend to end well in the medieval tradition. Additionally, the movie employed some striking symbolism, most notably with the relationship between Tristan and Mark. Mark loses his right hand to save Tristan’s life, and Tristan becomes his strong right hand as he grows up.

My group presented on “The Knight of the Cart” (of the four Arthurian Romances by de Troyes that we read for class). This story probably bears the strongest resemblance to the story of the movie because it is the only one which glorifies an adulterous relationship rather than marital fidelity (namely, the Lancelot and Guinevere connection). The two stories employ many of the same elements in approaching the relationship. The Mark-Isolde-Tristan triangle is an exact parallel of the Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot triangle. Both Tristan and Lancelot perform great and daring feats of arms, inspired by their love. Both couples wrestle with the morality of what they are doing, but are unable to stop. In terms of the essentials, both movie and book are telling the same story.

Studying Chrétien de Troyes and the courtly romance genre definitely enhanced my enjoyment of the movie several-fold. By itself it’s nothing special, just a halfway decent popcorn flick, but with a bit of understanding of the long history behind its story, it became the latest incarnation of a centuries-old literary tradition. And that was a perspective which simply couldn’t fail to fascinate me.

Posted in Reviews

Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), two troubled and lonely young men, struggle with a life-long homosexual attraction to each other after spending a summer herding sheep together atop Brokeback Mountain, Wyoming. Their relationship, which spans decades, strains their respective careers, ruins their heterosexual relationships, and ultimately threatens their chance at happiness.

Yes, seriously. Let’s get one thing clear from the outset. Brokeback Mountain does not glamorize homosexuality, nor does it get “preachy” about the importance of tolerance and permisiveness. It is a movie about the consequences of giving in to unbridled passion and violating the boundaries set in place by society. Whether those boundaries are, in fact, just is not directly addressed by the movie.

As of this writing, Brokeback Mountain has been nominated for eight Oscars, has won four Golden Globes, and has been showered with dozens of lesser awards and nominations. Many of these are certainly well-deserved. “Brokeback” is an impressive film. The cinematography is gorgeous, using the beauty of the Canadian wilderness to full effect as the backdrop against which much of the action takes place. Gustavo Santaolalla’s score is similarly masterful, subtly adding to the already emotionally-charged performances.

As for those performances, Ledger and Gyllenhaal are both very talented actors. They truly bring their respective characters to life, giving Jack and Ennis a depth which allows the viewer to care about them. Michelle Williams, as Ennis’s neglected wife, Alma, delivers a heartbreakingly moving performance. Aware of the true nature of her husband’s relationship with his “fishing buddy” almost from the beginning, she has no idea how to respond, suffering in silence for years.

Nevertheless, the film’s true power comes from its understated treatment of the subject. There are no hard-hitting, long-winded soliloquies decrying the evils of society or the tragedies which result from intolerance. In fact, the movie seems to take a minimalist approach to dialogue, conveying much more with a few words or a glance than some could with pages of exposition. Brokeback also makes skilled use of imagery and foreshadowing to heighten its impact. For instance, after Jack and Ennis’ first sexual encounter, Ennis discovers that one of the sheep they were supposed to be protecting has been gutted and eaten by a predator during the night. It is the first of many responsibilities that our protagonists will shirk.

Having established that Brokeback Mountain is both moving and well-made (Oscar-worthy, even), it is not without its flaws. Ledger’s and Gyllenhaal’s characters ostensibly age more than twenty years over the course of the movie. However, Ledger in particular never really seems to get any older. Without the other characters as points of reference, it would be difficult to tell that any time has passed at all as far as Ennis is concerned. This proved to be distracting when, for instance, Ennis converses with his grown-up daughter and hardly seems older than she is. Additionally, the slow, stately pace of the movie begins to feel somewhat ponderous near the end, rallying for the final scenes.

No one has gone to any pains to hide the fact that Brokeback Mountain is a film about a homosexual love affair. However, for a movie whose plot relies heavily on an ongoing sexual relationship between two men, the film practices remarkable (and admirable) restraint. Except for one dimly-lit scene containing no explicit nudity, all of the pair’s sexual encounters happen off-screen. The story that is being told here is not about lewd sensationalism, and the movie never sinks to that level.

Brokeback Mountain has been making huge waves since its release. The controversy over its subject has raged in the conservative Christian community. The cinema world has declared it a landmark masterpiece. With almost everyone, it seems, this movie has either struck a nerve or struck a chord. The issues surrounding homosexuality are becoming increasingly prevalent.

LETU itself was recently visited by Mike Haley, Director of Focus on the Family’s Gender Issues Department. Haley spoke in chapel and at the CDCL symposium on the subject of homosexuality’s impact on Christians and the church. He believes that we, as Christians, must learn to deal with homosexuals because they are not simply going to go away if left alone.

The message that audiences take away from “Brokeback” will depend largely on their preconceptions. If you go into this movie thinking that “gay is okay,” this will not change your opinion. If you go in thinking that homosexuality is an extremely destructive lifestyle, the movie might even confirm your opinion. However, to us the central theme of Brokeback Mountain is simply that, for one reason or another, homosexual relationships exist in our society and we lack the ability to effectively deal with them.

• Co-reviewed with Randy

Posted in Reviews

Well, I’ve seen it, and have pronounced it RAVE-WORTHY. I’ve half a mind to see it again before I skip town now that I’ve heard that Guatemala’s evil movie distributor won’t be releasing this masterpiece until January 6th. Boneheads. Anyway, this is supposed to be a movie review about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, not a rant about foolish Guatemalans.

In general terms, the movie absolutely drips gorgeous ambience. The music is absolutely enchanting. The cinematography is decadent. The actors are, for the most part, beautifully-cast in their roles (particularly Tumnus, Edmund, Lucy, Professor Kirk, Mrs. MacReady, and most especially the White Witch . . . Tilda Swinton is brilliant). The movie’s effects are top-notch, and it does not overindulge in unnecessary glitz until the final battle sequence, during which they are almost forgivable (but for a more than passing resemblance to similar scenes in Lord of the Rings . . . WETA really ripped themselves off big-time, but at least they ripped off something good).

In terms of quality of adaptation, the movie succeeded beyond my hopes. Consider, if you will, the following line from the first description the book provides of the room where the wardrobe is: “There was nothing else in the room at all except a dead blue-bottle on the window-sill.”

They put the blue-bottle in the movie.

Now, with attention to detail like that, I wondered later on why the plot felt it had to deviate in other areas . . . nevertheless, most of the essentials are there. My one big gripe in this regard is that the Beavers don’t tell the children that Aslan is a lion, and it is not revealed anywhere else by anyone else until he emerges from the tent. I’m sure this was done in an extremely misguided attempt to surprise us all at the appearance of a lion instead of a man or something. That’s just dandy except that anyone who has read the book knows what’s coming, and for anyone who hasn’t Aslan’s head takes the dominant spot front and center on every freaking movie poster that is splashed around the entire freaking theater.

I’m especially bitter about this change because there are a lot of really great lines spoken about Aslan by the Beavers which get cut in order not to “ruin the surprise” later on. And, just a few scenes after the Beaver’s Dam, when Edmund is wandering around the White Witch’s castle, he draws glasses and a moustache on the stone lion he finds, but now it doesn’t mean jack anything anymore because he hasn’t heard that Aslan is a lion. It’s just something random he does on a whim. He doesn’t even say anything . . . just draws his little whatsit and chuckles to himself and moves on. *sigh*

So, because of a few extremely retarded moves like that, I didn’t give it a perfect score. They did keep a lot of things that lesser directors might have cut . . . like Father Christmas. *cough*Bombadil!*cough* I do have to note that any adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia ought to have a big leg-up in this regard, because the books on which they are based aren’t as thick as bricks. Therefore there won’t be the necessity to make a marathon movie as with Lord of the Rings, or to slice-and-dice as with the mutilated slop we got in the last Harry Potter movie.

A lot of people I talked to found Aslan’s portrayal underwhelming, but that didn’t bother me overmuch. The emotional impact of the scenes at the Stone Table was rock solid . . . truly the centerpiece of the movie (as they should be) and that was what counted for me. Honestly (and I feel a little funny admitting this), these scenes moved me more deeply than the entirety of The Passion. Perhaps it was the context supplied by Narnia (and not supplied by The Passion) which showed just what Aslan dies for and what the effects of it are. Perhaps it was the fact that I wasn’t totally desensitized to violence and gore by the time the actual death took place. I don’t know. That’s just what I observed.

The other complaint I heard was about the battle scene. Virtually everyone in it was dual-wielding (two swords). Everything in it, I heard some say, was straight out of either Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. Well, maybe it did get to be a bit much . . . but it was pretty cool at the same time! There were gryphons divebombing the baddies with big rocks, for instance. On the one hand, that’s totally LotR territory. But on the other hand, it provided an excellent visual link to the Germans-bombing-the-crap-out-of-London scene that the movie began with. So . . . pros and cons, pros and cons.

That reminds me, though. Many of the changes were very positive. For instance, as I thought about it afterwards I realized that the four children in the original book are rather flat as characters. In the movie they were much better developed, on the whole. We felt emotionally attached to them, for a variety of reasons. We see that Edmund is feeling the absence of his father more than the other children, thus fueling his resentment of Peter’s authority. We see that Peter has been specially charged by his mother to look after his siblings when the children are separated from her (an especially heart-rending scene). And I don’t remember so much attention being paid to the development of family love and loyalty between the four children in the book. I was blown away to find the movie version of a C. S. Lewis book devoting even more time to positive, Christian themes than Lewis himself!

Oh, I mustn’t end without mentioning the elderly ladies who were sitting behind me. They seemed to think they were at a Baptist church service, getting steadily louder until I wanted to knock their heads together by the end of the movie. I’m thinking, “It’s on an inanimate screen! You don’t interact with it!” They’re sitting back there going:

Lady 1: Oh, there he is.

Lady 2: Uhhhh-huh.

Lady 1: Looks like they’ve killed him.

Lady 2: Mmm-hmm

Lady 1: He won’t stay dead for long, though.

Lady 2: No, sir!

Anyway, I shall end the review with a little piece of advice to audiences (and this goes for all movies, not just this one). Do yourself a big favor. Stay put for the credits.

Posted in Reviews

Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) returns to school for his fourth year to find that Hogwarts is hosting two other wizarding schools in an epic tournament consisting of three deadly tasks. Each school will be represented by a single champion. But all is not as it should be in this competition: Harry has mysteriously been entered alongside the other three champions. Meanwhile, there are increasing rumors of Voldemort’s return, and Harry and friends discover a growing interest in the opposite sex.

So, have you heard there’s a new Harry Potter movie out? There’s magic . . . flying broomsticks . . . Evil Lord Voldemort . . . Same old schtick. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is as long as any two of the three previous books combined, but the movie adaptation is only the second longest of the four at a measly two hours and thirty-four minutes. Sadly, the lack of runtime shows. Goblet” suffers from a hectic pace, virtually no character development, and shamelessly self-indulgent special effects.

In shortening a lengthy work, there are a number of routes to take to satisfy the necessities of keeping the main ideas intact, leaving room for the fans’ favorite scenes and still fulfilling the important elements of good movie-making. Goblet picked what is possibly the worst of these routes: a “good-parts” version of the book translated onto the big screen, sacrificing many of the elements from both the book and previous movies that made them so endearing to begin with. What we get instead is a mind-numbing barrage of flashy computer-generated glitz for the first hour or so of the movie without a moment’s pause for breath or expository dialogue.

For instance, Harry and his friends journey to an enormous encampment outside the Quidditch World Cup within the first few minutes of the movie, and we see the huge arena, the wild crowd and both teams flitting rapidly about. We are even introduced to Viktor Krum (Stanislav Ianevski), the most famous Quidditch player in the wizarding world. Cut to our heroes arriving back at their tent, post-game. Everyone seems happy, and no one seems to care who won or what just happened. They certainly don’t pause long enough to inform the audience before a group of Death Eaters (Who? Oh, nevermind) begin rampaging through the camp. Never fear, the Death Eaters won’t harm our hero. They won’t have time. He has to be at Hogwarts in five minutes.

Goblet hardly slows down the pace until just before the Yule Ball, when at last it appears as though we may get to know some of the characters. We are treated to a few scenes of actual dialogue with some good laughs and interesting developments. The Yule Ball begins and the Great Hall of Hogwarts (lavishly decorated for the occasion) is awash in a veritable sea of character interaction. It’s glorious . . . for at least thirty seconds. Then the rock music starts, and the scene abruptly devolves into junior prom. In this and other scenes, Newell has significantly changed the visual feel of the movies, abandoning some of the archaic fantasy appearance in favor of a more modern, pop style of the sort that will make this movie feel extremely dated within the next decade at most.

Essentially, the plot has been stripped down to include only the book’s flashiest scenes, largely related to the Tri-Wizard Tournament (an event which will remain largely unexplained to those who haven’t read the book). The action-packed scenes that are left are beefed up to make them even more exciting. The most vivid example of this is the transformation of a two and a half page scene in the book where Harry successfully completes the first task of the Tournament by outflying a dragon. In the movie, we are treated to a ten minute adrenaline-filled chase through the air, during which Harry must fall off his broom at least once, hang by his fingertips over a yawning drop, and plummet into the misty depths to be presumed dead before he ascends, broom sputtering, to complete the task.

Despite these flaws, fans of the series will be quick to note that this is still Harry Potter. Even though many of the characters seem flat, others are given brief but memorable moments to stand out. Severus Snape (Alan Rickman), the Weasley twins (James & Oliver Phelps), and Mad-Eye Moody (Brendan Gleeson) all shine in minor roles. Several subplots, which are complete dead ends cinematically, serve as nods to fans of the books to make up for cutting the whole thing, most notably the inclusion of Rita Skeeter (Miranda Richardson) and Madame Maxime’s (Frances de la Tour) romance with Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane).

Additionally, the movie’s climax, easily the darkest and most intense in the series to date, manages to convey all of the emotional weight of the book. From the moment Harry and his fellow competitors begin the final task of the Tournament, none of the previous flaws seem to matter. We might almost have forgotten them entirely if Goblet hadn’t defused its own impact with an incredibly trite denouement by Dumbledore before the final credits rolled.

As an adaptation of its source material, Goblet leaves much to be desired, and as a movie it suffers artistically in its attempts to match the source material. Nevertheless, fans of the series should still go see it, and will still enjoy what it gets right.

• Co-reviewed with Randy

Posted in Reviews

Fans of science fiction movies are avidly familiar with the standard elements of the genre: aging space ships held together with spit and chewing gum, a crew of misfits whose only common trait is a propensity for finding trouble, a combination of advanced technology and primitive “Old West” themes (to name just a few). All of these are certainly present in Serenity, the big-screen continuation of Joss Whedon’s television series, “Firefly,” but Serenity manages to rise above the usual clichés.

The movie opens with the rescue of River Tam (Summer Glau), an extraordinarily talented psychic, by her brother Simon (Sean Maher), an equally talented doctor. River has been psychologically programmed to be a human weapon by scientists at a top-secret military institute run by The Alliance, the dominant centralized governing body over human-inhabited planets. River and Simon, now fugitives, take refuge aboard Serenity, a rustbucket of a craft commanded by Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), a veteran from the losing side of an interplanetary civil war against The Alliance.

The crew’s standard routine of small-time jobs (both honest and dishonest) is disrupted when they discover that they are being chased by an Operative of The Alliance (Chiwetel Ejiofor). It seems that River has been in the presence of men from the highest level of government, and her psychic abilities may have enabled her to unconsciously glean information which could seriously harm The Alliance.

The “Old West” themes we mentioned earlier should be a bit more apparent now. Mal, the strongest character in the movie, is an embittered ex-Confederate (okay, fine, “Independent”) whose pragmatism is continually at odds with his conscience. Most of the crew speaks with a slightly archaic Western drawl, and their dialogue is punctuated by colorful figures of speech with a frontier flavor. Interestingly, this particular vision of humanity’s future seems to have a heavy Asian influence as well. This is most noticeable when the occasional incomprehensible phrase (in Mandarin Chinese, we are told) slides into the dialogue. The film’s weaponry and landscapes all have an Old West feel, too. Mal is a very skillful gunfighter, adept at the “quick draw” and at shooting from the hip, and his piece is a futuristic six-shooter, not a laser blaster. When our heroes are on the ground, they seem most comfortable on primitive, dusty planets, occupied only by small, frontier towns.

Religion, too, plays an interesting, if somewhat ambiguous role in Serenity. One group that the crew takes refuge with during their flight from The Alliance is led by a man named Meria Book (Ron Glass), a Christian minister of sorts whose title is “Shepherd” and who is also something of a mentor to Mal. Inara (Morena Baccarin), an old acquaintance who rejoins the crew about halfway through the movie, prays to Buddha and lives in a place that looks like a Tibetan monastery. The Operative, by far the most fanatical character in the movie, is (ironically) a secular humanist. He is willing to go to any length and commit any evil to bring about a world without sin. Serenity comes down most strongly on the side of individual freedoms and the right to believe whatever you want. “I don’t care what you believe,” Shepherd says, “just believe.”

Speaking technically, Serenity is good, but not perfect. The cinematography is unique in its use (almost overuse) of zoom and focus effects, but there are also many truly memorable shots. Of course, an important element of any science fiction film is its special effects, and Serenity does not entirely disappoint. The effects are impressive when it counts (such as during the final, climactic battle sequence), but often have a very “made-for-TV” feel. The music of Serenity truly stands out, although we have heard fans of the series express disappointment at the exclusion of the television theme.

The dialogue is fantastic in a charmingly corny way, full of jibing banter and unexpected laughs. For instance, during the opening sequence, Mal announces, “This is the captain. We have a little problem with our entry sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then . . . explode.” To which a member of his crew peevishly responds, “I don’t wanna explode!” The last twenty minutes of the movie is particularly well-done. Going into the movie’s climax, Whedon makes it unequivocally clear that none of his characters are sacred and he is willing to kill them off. This adds immeasureably to the sense of realism and tension at the end.

As a continuation of a 14-episode TV show, one might think familiarity with the previous material is a necessity for enjoyment of the film. Not so, small sage! The movie summarizes its own backstory effectively within the first few minutes, leaving only a few things (such as the more complex character relationships) to be guessed at by the uninformed viewer. Despite the fact that neither of these reviewers have seen the series, we had no trouble following the plot or enjoying the action.

Ultimately, any appreciation of this movie will probably be dependent on a viewer’s appreciation of the genre. What it does, it does well, and what it doesn’t do doesn’t harm it significantly. If the knavish main characters, dynamic action, and glib philosophizing of standard sci-fi fare appeals to you, then by all means, go see Serenity.

• Co-reviewed with Randy

Posted in Reviews

Mere seconds into the opening scene, my co-reviewer leaned over and whispered to me, “Oh, look. Bullets.” In the most simplistic terms, that is a perfect summary of Lord of War. The opening montage is both cleverly-shot and sobering, following the life of a single bullet all the way from manufacture in a factory to use on an innocent bystander in the middle of a war zone. The final scene reminds us that, despite the chaos caused by independent gunrunners, the five nations with permanent seats on the UN Security Council are the largest manufacturers and distributors of weaponry on the planet. The film sometimes seems to lose sight of its message along the way, but the case it eventually makes is difficult to ignore. What it amounts to is a hard look at the free trade of weapons, the horrors of warfare, and the role the United States plays in disseminating both.

Lord of War is cannily written and engagingly filmed, with plenty of well-developed characters to root for and despise (often at the same time). The acting is mostly solid. The dialogue is witty and the special effects look good. The movie is easy to follow, despite the large number of characters and the sudden jumps in time and place. But the plot seems to lose its way a number of times, and the situations do not always remain believable. Additionally, a few unnecessary subplots become a bit unwieldy and never really justify their inclusion in the film. Tighter editing would have made for a more effective case supporting the movie’s thesis.

Technical excellence and lack of focus aside, the big question is whether the movie treats its subject too seriously or too lightly. Not for the sensitive viewer, Lord of War uses raw, brutally realistic scenes of violence to get its point across. On the other hand, the voice-over narration provided by Orlov injects a great deal of wry (and often welcome) humor into the script. It soon becomes apparent that, however casual and glib Orlov may be about what he does, the moviemakers are serious about their own message. The deeply cynical outlook of Lord of War requires the audience to take a harshly negative view of global politics. It would take a stoic viewer indeed not to hope for a brighter world than the one we are shown here.

This, ultimately, is the angle of approach the movie takes. Pulling no punches in portraying their perspective of the grim truths which lie at the evil heart of global conflict, the creators hope that audiences will come away with a new perspective on the world. They seek to show that there is nothing noble, honorable, or virtuous about warfare or the people that perpetuate it. One thing is certain: Lord of War is purely a morality tale, and its purpose is primarily to instruct, not to entertain. Whether or not the movie is well-made, viewers’ appreciation of it will rest on whether they are convinced that the message is true.

• Co-reviewed with Randy

Posted in Reviews

“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Come up to Me on the mountain and be there; and I will give you tablets of stone, and the law and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them.'” -Exodus 24:12

I have just finished viewing a masterpiece: Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Dekalog, a miniseries which appeared on Polish television in 1989. In English the title is The Decalogue: ten stand-alone one-hour episodes based on the Ten Commandments and the moral code they imply. Each episode by itself is a pleasure to watch, a brilliant work of art. Collectively they are nothing short of sublime.

Wilson insisted early on that it would be silly to seriously try to map each episode directly to a commandment, yet we more or less managed to do just that for the first seven . . . after that it became hazy. However, while most episodes might have been addressing one more-or-less dominant commandment, all of them at least partially involved two or more. For instance, seven of the episodes dealt with sexual sin in some way (even if only tangentially).

Each of the episodes was set in Warsaw and centered around an occupant of the same ugly apartment building. Various characters made appearances in multiple episodes, but were only major players in one. Of particular interest was the enigmatic figure who appeared in eight of the ten episodes, but never had a line of dialogue. His role generally consisted of appearing in the background, observing whatever event was taking place, often with a saddened or disapproving look on his face. We eventually decided that this character, if he represented anything specific, was meant to be the face of Morality itself. However, even the director seemed to not have a definite concept in mind to attach to this symbol.

Without giving anything important away, here is a brief synopsis of the concept behind each episode:

Decalogue One – A young boy is ideologically torn between the rationalistic atheism of his father and the compassionate faith of his aunt. Father and son share an intense interest in computers, relying on the father’s computer to calculate whether a nearby pond has frozen over sufficiently to make it safe for the boy to skate on.

Decalogue Two – A woman whose husband is dying of cancer approaches the doctor in charge of the case. She and her husband have never been able to conceive, and she is now carrying the child of another man. She wants the baby, but if her husband is going to live, she will get an abortion. She wants to know the doctor’s opinion on the state of her husband’s health, and is determined to base her decision on his prognosis.

Decalogue Three – On Christmas Eve, a woman comes to visit the man she had an affair with years before because her husband has gone missing and she doesn’t know who else to turn to. He leaves his own family and sets out across the city with her, following a trail of enigmatic clues . . . but before long it becomes apparent that all is not as it seems.

Decalogue Four – An aspiring actress still living at home with her father stumbles upon an envelope in their apartment labelled “To Be Opened After My Death.” With her father away on a business trip, she peeks inside and discovers a secret she had never suspected concerning him and her dead mother.

Decalogue Five – Quite probably the most beautifully-made episode of the ten, this story involves three totally separate plotlines about a lecherous taxi driver, a small-time crook/sociopath, and an idealistic young public defender about to try his first capital murder case. By the end, all three stories have become inextricably intertwined in a powerful way.

Decalogue Six – A 19-year old, introverted employee of the Post Office becomes, first obsessed, then enamored with the promiscuous woman who lives in the apartment across from his building. No longer satisfied with spying on her through his telescope, he decides to reveal his feelings to her.

Decalogue Seven – A 16-year old girl has an affair with a teacher at the school where her mother is headmistress. Her mother becomes official guardian of the child, a girl, when it is born, and six years later she is still in a winning competition with her daughter over who will play the role of the little girl’s mother. Driven to distraction, the girl, now a young woman, steals her daughter, planning to run away to Canada, but a brief stop at the house of the little girl’s father brings introspection for all involved.

Decalogue Eight – In 1943 a young Jewish girl is turned away from the home of the Catholic couple who had promised to shelter her on the grounds that they cannot bring themselves to break the commandment against “bearing false witness.” Decades later, the Catholic woman is an ethics professor at a university in Warsaw, and the Jewish girl, now in her forties, comes to visit her from America to question her about the events surrounding that fateful time.

Decalogue Nine – A happily-married man discovers that he is no longer able to have intercourse with his wife, and he gives her the option to divorce him or seek attention from other men should she so desire. She refuses to do either, declaring that she will stay by him no matter what, but he soon begins to suspect that she is, in fact, having an affair behind his back, becoming successively more paranoid as he investigates.

Decalogue Ten – Two brothers, one the lead singer of a heathen rock band, the other a white-collar office worker, reunite to settle their recently-deceased father’s estate only to discover that he has left behind a priceless stamp collection. Overcoming their initial urge to profit from their father’s life-long obsession, they quickly become enthusiastic philatelists, going to ever-more extreme measures to hoarde and protect their treasure and acquire even more rare stamps.

Most of the episodes did not involve a great deal of dialogue or action. In fact, a casual observer might go so far as to say that nothing at all really happened over the course of an episode, yet I was totally enthralled during each and every one. During a few I barely moved a muscle. Half the fun of watching them was the presence of a group of friends (Wilson and I, after watching the first few alone, were joined by Martinez, Rachel, and Paige for every episode after number four).

Each episode began with preliminary guesses from the viewers about the dominant commandment to be addressed, and proceeded with a good deal of speculation about what might be going on or what the outcome might be. Finally, once the end credits had stopped rolling by and the spell was broken, we looked around at each other and tried to figure out what lessons had just played themselves out on the screen. Most of the endings were extremely open-ended, providing little or no closure and leaving the fates of the main characters wide-open to speculation.

In fact, most episodes began like a puzzle or a mystery as well, leaving a large burden on the viewer rather than on expositional dialogue to put together the circumstances surrounding the plot and characters. Speaking for myself, this sucked me right into the middle of whatever was going on. It seemed like we were simply watching a portion of someone’s actual life, like the voyeur from episode six, rather than being directly entertained or instructed by a story.

While all of them were excellent, I would have to say that my favorites were three, five, and ten. A little research online revealed that Roger Ebert actually once taught a college course over the series, and it occurs to me that this would be positively decadent fare for a group of Honors students under the tutelage of Dr. Watson (who, I discovered, happens to own the miniseries). But I digress. I just wanted to let my small group of readers in on this well-kept secret . . . highly recommended viewing!

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