This isn't a review of the series, it's just about how and where I saw it.
I was an exchange student in Krakow when the Dekalog was aired on Polish television. The only TV in our dorm building was on the ground floor, in the reception, behind a counter where the women sat who gave you your mail or took your key when you left. The women, and TV, sat behind sliding panels of glass that could be opened or closed. I would run down five flights of stairs, along with handfuls of other students, to watch the series on that TV in the reception/entry room.
It was electrifying to watch this in Poland, in one of those post-war monolith buildings, on a small TV, sitting in furnishings depicted in the series. Kieslowski reflected back to us the world we inhabited. Albeit, I wasn't stuck there, being American. But like nowhere else, I ran into situations in Poland that tested me. (What possessed me to leave Los Angeles for Krakow anyhow?) I'll never forget the experience of seeing this television series in Poland. In that reception room I fell in love with the creative expression of Krzystof Kieslowski and Zbigniew Preisner.
Fast forward to 1996. I am in Berlin, through a professional exchange program between Los Angeles & Berlin. I have a vivid dream about sitting with Krzystof Keislowski in his kitchen. We are talking at the breakfast table. He gets mad at me and says, "you have this opportunity and you waste it by being polite! Why you? Ask me anything. What do you want to know?" Then my dream fades off... And then it's the next day and I learn he died in surgery the previous day. I truly believe my dream was a connection. It freaked me out, and I cherished it--just wish I wasn't so polite.
I must watch Dekalog again...
I was an exchange student in Krakow when the Dekalog was aired on Polish television. The only TV in our dorm building was on the ground floor, in the reception, behind a counter where the women sat who gave you your mail or took your key when you left. The women, and TV, sat behind sliding panels of glass that could be opened or closed. I would run down five flights of stairs, along with handfuls of other students, to watch the series on that TV in the reception/entry room.
It was electrifying to watch this in Poland, in one of those post-war monolith buildings, on a small TV, sitting in furnishings depicted in the series. Kieslowski reflected back to us the world we inhabited. Albeit, I wasn't stuck there, being American. But like nowhere else, I ran into situations in Poland that tested me. (What possessed me to leave Los Angeles for Krakow anyhow?) I'll never forget the experience of seeing this television series in Poland. In that reception room I fell in love with the creative expression of Krzystof Kieslowski and Zbigniew Preisner.
Fast forward to 1996. I am in Berlin, through a professional exchange program between Los Angeles & Berlin. I have a vivid dream about sitting with Krzystof Keislowski in his kitchen. We are talking at the breakfast table. He gets mad at me and says, "you have this opportunity and you waste it by being polite! Why you? Ask me anything. What do you want to know?" Then my dream fades off... And then it's the next day and I learn he died in surgery the previous day. I truly believe my dream was a connection. It freaked me out, and I cherished it--just wish I wasn't so polite.
I must watch Dekalog again...