Dekalog: Trzy (The Decalogue Episode Three)

Just emerged from watching the third episode of the Decalogue.

This episode is modelled (or rather, inspired) by the third commandment of the Holy Ten: ‘Keep the sabbath day, for it is holy’. A married cab driver is – enticed? harangued? threatened? – by his ex-lover on Christmas eve to drive all around Warsaw to look for her errant new boyfriend who has ran away. It is eventually found that she has lied the night through to keep him with her because she is convinced that if she manages to keep him through the lonely night good luck will ensue.

Ewa, the ex-lover, is to all appearances a psychotic, manipulative and emotionally reliant, needy woman. Janusz, the cab driver, does not seem put off, although at moments in the film he coolly asks if she has had enough and would like to go home. Instead he seems, if mildly irritated, largely coalescing. It did puzzle me at first but as the film progresses I think that for all his new-found fidelity to his family (and not really his wife, really, we see that the love he has for her has quietened down considerably) Ewa still has a hold on him and his willingness to accompany her on this joy ride of sorts, despite knowing, by a very cunning and observant que, that she is lying (shan’t spoil the story for you), has got to do with his wanting to tie up loose ends in his past affair with him. The complications of adulterous relationships…

I cannot help noting with interest that although going on a goose chase all over Warsaw on Christmas eve with an ex-lover seems prima facie to be in direct conflict with the commandment, one cannot help feeling like Janusz has kept the commandment. The holiest thing he did was probably to help the broken (although fallen) spirit of Ewa: keeping her company on the loneliest of nights (for a single, emotionally let down woman devoid of family love – all she has for family is a senile aunt). Sometimes all people need is affection. And at the same time convincing himself of the true worth of his family, witnessed when he makes a decisive break from Ewa’s clutches and returns to his wife, who, in understated elegance and magnanimous, loving restraint, shows by a simple one-word question that she knows what he has been up to the whole time. Some comments I’ve seen online state that the ‘rendezvous’ showed him just how self-centred Ewa is and how, in all probability, their affair was, which motivated him to make a clean break. I concur.

Can’t type the rest of the themes that I’d gleaned from the movie over, rather pressed for time and hungry (lunchtime!). But I’ll leave a link to a site which discussed the episode:
http://artsandfaith.com/index.php?showtopic=876

The Brothers Karamazov – Still very unclear

The chapter where Ivan squares off with Smerdyakov.

We finally see Ivan losing his cool. Here the whole scene is underlined by a certain amount of pathos as we watch the usually very cool and rational Ivan suddenly losing himself somewhat erratically.

Dostoevsky does endear ourselves to this character. Makes me remember those times when someone hit a raw nerve.

Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov

I started this book the day I finished my exams the Saturday before last (10 May). I’m a third through by now.

Intrigued by a referral and rough summary of his broad thematic message and his Grand Inquisitor chapter, I decided to tackle the book. It was an exciting, gripping and yes, intriguing read from the start.

I cannot believe how deranged a family this is. Yes, sometimes his portrayals border on the theatrical (and therefore the unbelievable), but critics are right to credit Dostoevsky for his vivid portrayals of humans. I think what impresses me most is the fact that in varying degrees even the most debauched characters think of the ‘univeral questions’ – God, sin, forgiveness, eternity, life etc.

Before I started the novel I thought I would like Ivan. It is true, I do like the character. He is impressive in his coolly rational manner, his (somewhat pseudo) intellectual qualities and the pathos of his belief-disbelief. But now somewhere deep into the Grand Inquisitor I find him a little… half-baked intelligent, somewhat contradictory, a little crazed, perhaps due to disillusionment (all the pity). Even, amazingly, somewhat annoying – why does he refuse to accept the painful truth? Perhaps he is annoying because he is incomprehensible to me (which, granted, is not very good grounds for feeling annoyed at anyone, or any character).

I thought I’d be neutral with regards Alyosha, but so far I’ve developed a liking for this angelic younger brother. I always had an impression that he was naively sticking to his beliefs, unquestioningly, but how wrong! Alyosha does question. The amazing fact is that despite his own questions and despite his brother Ivan’s doubt-ridden questions about faith that he hurls mercilessly at his own brother (I recall the amazingly frank quote that he loved his brother very much and didn’t want to lose him to the starets, the religious leader), Alyosha doesn’t budge. Such steadfastness deserves admiration.