Dekalog IX

The penultimate installment of Dekalog explores the ninth commandment: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife.

Our protagonist, Dr. Roman Nycz, has been diagnosed with impotence. It had never occurred to me that this is something one gets formally diagnosed with. I assumed you would just know. In any case, his friend and colleague confirms the prognosis, then makes the bone-headed suggestion that Roman should divorce his wife, Hanka. What kind of advice is that?

Roman and Hanka love one another and want to stick it out, even if there won’t be any sticking in. There is more to love than sex. Still reeling, Roman says he would not begrudge Hanka if she found another lover. She refuses, and the two leave it there.

It turns out Hanka already has a lover: a little pip-squeak named Mariusz. Roman clocks it, grows jealous and starts spying on her. Amid the escalating tension and guilt at home, Hanka decides to end the affair. She does this at her mother’s house, which doubles as their secret shag shack. Mariusz takes it badly. Hanka throws him out, only to discover Roman hidden in the closet. In that moment, she realises he saw everything and has known about her infidelity all along.

They agree to work through it. Their, erm, solution includes plans to adopt a child. Before that can happen, Roman sends Hanka away for a little rest and relaxation on a solo ski trip. Unbeknownst to her, Mariusz finds out and follows her there. Roman learns this, assumes it was coordinated, and rides his bicycle off a bridge in an attempt to kill himself. It is a pretty low bridge, and he lands in a pile of dirt. It looks like he should come away with little more than bruises, yet he ends up in hospital wrapped in what appears to be a full-body cast.

Eventually, the staff tell Roman that Hanka had called earlier to say she was returning from her trip. The two reconnect by telephone and reunite.

Dekalog IX deals in painfully intimate material, and for long stretches it lands. You feel for Roman. Any man rendered impotent, especially while still fairly young, would likely feel diminished. The episode taps into that humiliation that follows when love, sex and self-worth feel inseparable. 

It misses the mark a few times though. Roman’s doctor friend is absurdly callous, and Roman’s suicide attempt has something adolescent about it. But that may be the point. Kieślowski is showing us a man whose pride has been blown up, and who responds with regression. 

There are also a handful of great shots in Dekalog IX. My favourite comes in an elevator. Roman and Hanka are talking, and as the elevator rises, the light illuminates only one of them at a time. It called to mind the elevator scene from one of the earlier episodes. It is a simple device, but an effective one: even when they occupy the same small space, they remain cut off from one another, each briefly visible, then obscured again.