Decalogue IV

Anka, a drama student, finds an envelope among her father Michal's things marked open after my death. What she learns leaves her facing a shattering possibility about her own parentage. She writes a fake letter as though it came from her mother, then realises the original may say the same thing. The film ends with the two of them trying to read the fragments of a half-burnt letter. Krzysztof Kieslowski directed. It is the fourth part of Dekalog and its commandment is to honour your father and mother. Adrianna Biedrzynska plays Anka and Janusz Gajos plays Michal. The whole series takes place in the same Warsaw housing block in the 1980s. Kieslowski wrote the scripts with Krzysztof Piesiewicz, Zbigniew Preisner composed the music, and apart from parts three and nine each episode had a different cinematographer. This one was photographed by Krzysztof Pakulski. It runs 56 minutes on a budget of 10,000 dollars and was made for Polish Television. Who it is for: viewers who like cinema that says a great deal with almost no space, and moral dilemmas. Who it is not for: anyone uneasy about a father and daughter's tension drifting into a sexual register. The film does not close that possibility off; it sits with it.