Kino London

Posted by Laura Shacham on Monday, August 16th, 2010 at 11:35 am.

I’m not ashamed to say that I spent a large part of last week doggedly watching Dekalog - Kieślowski’s ten-part series based on the ten commandments.  And these ten hours (plus toilet breaks) of my life I gave to these films willingly. Yes, the films are dated and yes, they do feel a tiny bit ‘soap-opera’ – partly because Kieślowski likes to keep a good actor when he finds them which brings a certain continuity. But maybe, just maybe, because that’s what happens when you watch ten hours, pretty much straight, of the same director. These films are Kieślowski gold; he turns out raw, gritty, complicated human stories again and again, and they’re beautiful.

So why am I talking about Dekalog?  After dedicating ten hours to those films, I set off in search of the root of Kieślowski’s magic.  And this is what I found. Urząd or The Office is one of Kieślowski’s earliest films made in 1966 while he was a student at Łódź Film School.  From one clerk’s office window, Urząd documents the comings and goings of people looking for government aid. Kieślowski takes his microscope to the system as bureaucracy stamps its foot at every turn, making the simplest of things inexplicably complicated.  There are rules and procedure for just about everything and the unwavering dedication with which they’re followed is laughable.  Except that it’s difficult to laugh when you realise that this film isn’t fictional.

An old woman who has just left hospital and wants to know how she can get hold of her pension is told: “Complete the form. List everything you’ve done in your lifetime.”  At eighty years young, that’s no mean feat.

But of all the bizarre transactions that take place during the film, my all-time favourite has to be the man who’s told that he’s brought too many documents with him.  His punishment for this overzealous adherence to the rules? Apply for an official nullification of the unnecessary page.

I imagine him leaving his flat, grabbing that extra sheet at the last minute ‘just incase’, a simmering sense of self-satisfaction at having preempted the clerk. Oh how wrong he was.