For Kieślowski, Decalogue IX also became a harbinger of a new film adventure. In the story about marital infidelity, suspicion and jealousy, the director included a prelude to The Double Life of Veronique. The patient (Jolanta Piętek-Górecka), who talks to the doctor about life and death, is a prototype of Weronika – endowed with an extraordinary voice, suffering from heart disease, she has to choose between passion, the will to live and the obligation to fulfil the talents given to her. Listening to records by the Dutchman Van den Budenmayer (a fictitious name which has twice served as Zbigniew Preisner’s pseudonym), she 'infects' the talented but lost surgeon with her music.
Decalogue IX was yet another opportunity for Kieślowski (after the third part of the series) to work with Piotr Sobociński, one of the greatest cinematographic talents in the entire history of Polish cinema. It was Sobociński’s artistic talent that transformed the seemingly ordinary and deprived of aesthetic spaces into laboratories of feelings. Hospital interiors, where the protagonist talked about feelings, sacrifice and giving oneself away, suddenly became metaphorical spaces in which he vivisected himself, starting with small incisions and ending with a painful, symbolic operation on his own heart. Also, the main character’s house turned from a safe haven into an observatory, a place of secrets, lies and understatements, and the way it was presented on screen evolved with the characters.
The cinematography for Decalogue IX was almost made by someone else – Sławomir Idziak. Asked by Kieślowski to cooperate on The Decalogue, Idziak was evasive. He was not the only one – for some filmmakers, cooperating with the regime television at the time was a kind of collaboration with the falling system, and many of them simply did not believe in the success of Kieślowski’s and Piesiewicz’s project. Idziak, whom the director asked to make Decalogue V, was terrified of its brutality and tried to convince Kieślowski to make ‘Impotent’ together instead – as he called the ninth part of the series. Eventually this ‘Impotent’ ended up in the hands of Sobociński, with whom, years later, Kieślowski also filmed Three Colours: Red.
Decalogue IX was the third episode of the series, next to Decalogue V and Decalogue VI, planned for a cinema release. Krzysztof Zanussi, who on behalf of TOR Film Studio was responsible for the production of the series and its financing, was especially anxious about it. Unfortunately, due to budgetary constraints, the production of ‘A Short Film About Adultery’ (one of the working titles of the project) did not happen, and Decalogue IX was presented mainly on television screens.
- Decalogue IX. Director: Krzysztof Kieślowski. Screenplay: Krzysztof Kieślowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz. Cinematography: Piotr Sobociński. Music: Zbigniew Preisner. Starring: Piotr Machalica. Ewa Błaszczyk, Jerzy Trela, Jolanta Piętek-Górecka.
Originally written in Polish by B. Staszczyszyn, translated into English by P. Grabowski, June 2021