Decalogue X

Decalogue X

DVD poster
Directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski
Produced by Ryszard Chutkovski
Written by Krzysztof Kieślowski
Krzysztof Piesiewicz
Starring Zbigniew Zamachowski
Jerzy Stuhr
Music by Zbigniew Preisner
Cinematography Jacek Blawut
Editing by Ewa Smal
Distributed by Polish Television
Release date(s) 1988
Running time 55 min.
Country Poland
Language Polish
Budget $10.000

The Decalogue - X (Polish: Dekalog, dziesięć) is a tenth part of the television series The Decalogue by Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski, connected to the tenth imperative of the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods, nor anything that is your neighbor's.. Two brothers (Jerzy Stuhr and Zbigniew Zamachowski) inherit a stamp collection but give a most valuable series away before realizing its extremely high worth. When they realize this they try to get it back... [1]

Plot

The story begins on a concert of punk group "City Death". There is a crowd of young people listening to the loud music and the group frontman/singer, Artur (Zbigniew Zamachowski). A guy wading through the crowd of punkers, Jerzy (Jerzy Stuhr), waves frantically to the group and it becomes clear that he knows the frontman. It is his older brother. Jerzy informs Artur that their father Czesław "Root" Janicki has died. It is not a great emotional loss, since they were not close and have not seen each other for a long time.

They arrive at their father's flat which is very dirty and does not have much furniture inside, however it is steel-doored, multi-locked and heavily alarmed. They find out that there is a big collection of stamps inside the flat. They are also approached by a shady character that says that their father owed him a lot of money and even offers to take "something from the flat" just to see if he could take it as payment.

None of them is an expert on stamps (and even at some level they resent the collection, since it represents lots of hardship and it separated their father from them) but they try to find out how much they can get for them. Jerzy gives a series of Weimar Republic Flugpost Polarfahrt 1931 Zeppelin stamps to his son. Artur goes to a stamp collectors' show and there he meets the president of their association who recognizes the son of "Root" Janicki; he meets both brothers at their father's apartment and there he tells them that the entire collection is worth millions. Jerzy is appalled to learn that his son traded the Zeppelin stamps for hundreds of worthless stamps. He tracks the stamps down to a shady store owner that has covered his tracks all too well to call the police.

Artur and Jerzy spend a lot of money in new alarms for the apartment and even a dog. Artur comes up with a scheme to force the store owner to give him the Zeppelin stamps back, after succeeding, this man tells them about the Austrian rose Mercury, an incomplete series of which they own two of the three, if they complete the series, the value of the whole might be extremely high, but to acquire the stamp Jerzy has to donate his kidney, since the man in possession of the stamp is in need of a kidney for his daughter and as the store owner sets it, these kinds of valuable items are not bought but exchanged.

Returning from the hospital, Jerzy and Artur find that they have been robbed... The entire stamp collection is gone except for the dog and the missing stamp. They report each other to the police but are later reconciled after they come across the other characters in the film with a sudden look of newly acquired wealth.

[2] [3] [4]

Cast

In other roles

Daniel Kozakiewicz, Henryk Majcherek, Elzbieta Panas, Jerzy Turek, Grzegorz Warchol

References