amy: The Decalogue #6

Despite the fact this episode of the Decalogue is probably meant to end tragically, I am holding onto my own interpretation which can be supported with reasonable evidence. This is probably my favorite episode so far, and I believe that it ended well. While in the other movies I am not sure if I agree with the meaning Krieslowski tries to extrapolate, in Decologue number six he seems to understand this commandment more than any other. He sees the heart of the commandment. The woman in the film commits adultery with every man she allows to use her. She commits adultery against the young man who truly loves her and wants nothing but her love in return. Krieslowski sees the problem of the day: men and women having physical relationships that are based solely upon the physical. Without commitment and love, these physical acts betray the beauty of the physical act.
The “peeper,” as the class has labeled the main male character, has a better understanding of the sixth commandment than the older woman who is much more cynical and jaded from life. The woman had no concept of love; therefore, she simply broke the sixth commandment every time she is in any type of relationship. The naïve young man was once at the stage where he lusted after her, but he reaches the point of greater understanding about lust’s hopeless, empty nature.
His love is true. The woman breaks him down to the point that he mentally cannot cope with an action he knows is wrong. I found this to be one of the most difficult things to watch from the Decalogue movies. To see a man broken down by the pressuring of a careless and hard woman, essentially the breaking down of true love into the realm of physical lust, causes me to just be overwhelmed by the horror of it all. The viewer can understand the humiliation and degradation of the young man’s love and even understand his bent towards suicide.
I see a maturity in the man after this experience and, most importantly, a change. I feel as though he has grown up and stopped playing the little games to get attention. I did not see the end as his love ending, but maturing. I can at least hope for a changed dynamic between the two of them: a softening of the woman’s heart and a renewed wisdom of a young man.