King Leopold's Ghost

Bringing to Life Morality of Antiquity

Based on the first commandment "I am the Lord Thy God, thou shall not put any other false gods before me", Krzystof Kieslowski's Decalogue 1 (1988) is a story of a father, Krzystof, who has more faith in computers and logic than in God and of his son, Pawel, curious about death and the existence of God. Krzystof calculated that the thickness of the ice at a nearby lake was thick enough to support Pawel's weight while he skated. However, proving his father's calculation wrong, Pawel goes skating and drowns by falling through cracked ice. As opposed to questioning Krzystof's lack of faith in God, the film challenges the notion of following a philosophical or religious group blindly.

While portraying characters in a natural setting, Decalogue 1 seeks to examine the problem of fundamental sin in ordinary people. By focusing on people in their home, Kieslowski illustrated moral conflict in a contemporary setting with relationships that anyone may be drawn to. Based on Michael Roemer's characteristics of good film making, by using "the stuff of life itself" Kieslowski's preoccupation and portrayal of reality in Decalogue 1 make it a worthwhile film. (MacCann, 255) It integrates a "Ð'...sequence of concrete actions and reactions that render the feelings and thoughts of a character." (Roemer, 261) In addition, Decalogue 1 renders "an objective situation" with scenes that "are deeply moving, for they are predicted on a rare and free flowing of feeling between an audience and material." (Roemer, 267) The film also enables the audience to become more actively involved by making them draw their own conclusions on the basis of evidence presented. (Roemer, 264)

Instead of portraying worshippers of pagan gods, Kieslowski chose to bring to life the morality of antiquity with simplistic realism that anyone in the audience may relate to. The film brought meaning to the ambiguities that revolve around morality by illustrating them in a father who has more faith in science than in God and in turn how this faith affects his young son. However, Kieslowski was not blatant about his depiction of Krzystof. Alternatively, he showed us Krzystof's reliance on the computer which peaked when he used the computer as the dictator of his own son's safety. This concrete example brought more significance to the audience's notion of exactly how much trust Krzystof put into the calculations of his computer. Here Roemer would consider Kieslowski's way of showing the symptoms of Krzystof's feelings, his loyalty to his computer, as opposed to a