TELEWIZJA POLSKA presents
a film from the DECALOGUE series
DECALOGUE FOUR
Screenplay
OPEN AFTER MY DEATH
Anka! Goddammit, stop it!
Anka!
Stop it!
Anka!
It's Easter Monday today!
No!
What? Open it!
I'm in a hurry, open it!
You promise?
Bloody hell, open it!
Easter Monday?
No! I won't have time to dry!
Hello? Yes, Anka.
Hang it up, Dad. I'll take it in your room.
Did he hang up?
Yes.
Did you, Dad?
He did.
Well?
Nothing, it was a false alarm.
I've got my monthly today.
Thank God!
Want me to pick you up from the airport?
What?
Hell, my ticket!
Are you scared?
Will you believe me if I say I'm not?
I don't like you leaving me.
It's bloody wet.
Bye, Daddy!
Take care of yourself.
Anka!
I've forgotten to pay the rent and the phone bill.
Where are the bills?
In the secretary drawer.
OPEN AFTER MY DEATH
- Name? - Anka.
- Age? - Twenty.
You are a student?
Third year of acting school.
- College of Theatre Arts. - I know.
I'm just wondering...
My son wants to enter it. What did you pass?
Literature, prose, verse, song.
What kind of verse did you say?
Eliot, Herbert.
Eliot...
No, he won't have a chance.
A problem with your eyesight?
Yes, yesterday I watched a flying plane.
It was only a blurred point.
I've noticed I can't read bus numbers...
Unless the bus is close.
Please.
F...
A...
T...
H...
E...
R...
Father.
Were you guessing at the end?
Yes.
And you know English?
Yes.
Why did you arrange the letters in that way?
I check the intelligence when I have the chance.
My father was on the plane that I didn't see.
OPEN AFTER MY DEATH
Have I done anything?
- Anything wrong? - No.
You're not the hub of universe.
You're angry?
I don't like it when father leaves.
If you're sad or scared...
I can stay with you all the time.
FOR MY DAUGHTER ANNY
Who's next?
Now I know it's me.
And so do I.
Come closer.
"Goodnight.
"We won't play anymore tonight.
"Goodnight."
Witch! You love him, don't you?
What?
You're an offended princess! Concentrate!
Why do I love him?
I don't know the implied meaning.
How come you don't?
Everybody has something to be loved for.
- But why him? - Find a reason.
Perhaps because he looks at you with childish delight.
All right, if you say so...
Lie down on the table. This is the situation.
Forget about yourself.
Text.
"Goodnight."
Good.
"We won't play anymore tonight.
"Let the angel of dreams
"embrace you with his blue wings."
Don't be ashamed!
"Goodnight.
"Let your eyes rest after the tears.
"Goodnight."
Stop smiling and get closer!
"Goodnight.
Turn...
"Turn your eyes again on me.
"Turn your cheeks
"Goodnight."
You're not concentrating.
"Turn your cheeks
"Goodnight
"You want to call your servants?"
"Let me kiss your breast."
"Goodnight. It's buttoned up."
"Repeating goodnight
"I wouldn't let you fall asleep."
You see, you can look!
Finally, you are concentrating.
Thank you, take a break.
FOR MY DAUGHTER ANNY
Hi, I'm sorry I didn't call you.
Michal asked me about some drawings.
Do you know anything?
I'm in a hurry, they are waiting for me downstairs.
- Adam, wait! - Yes?
You've been friends with my father for many years.
We studied together.
- Did you know my mother? - Yes.
Not very much though.
What was she like?
You resemble her.
Physically?
Yes, but in general
she had intuition, just like you.
- Could she possibly have a secret? - I don't know.
Something she wanted to tell me?
If she'd wanted she'd have told you. She was just like you.
I was five days old when she died.
Right.
She'd have written a letter or...
I'm sorry, I'm in a hurry.
I'll drop in on you when Michal's back.
Hi, why here?
Nice glasses.
So light.
- Anything happened? - No.
- Anything in school? - No.
So?
"My dear daughter..."
What?
"My dear daughter.
"You're reading this letter and I don't know what you look like.
"I'm sure you're big now and Michal is dead.
"Now you're so tiny and I saw you only once.
"They don't show you to me because I'll be dead soon.
"I must tell you something important.
"Michal is not your father.
"It's not important who is.
"A moment of stupidity, distraction and wrong.
"I know that Michal will love you just like his own daughter.
"I'm thinking about the moment
"when you're reading the letter, at your place.
"You have dark hair, don't you?
"You have slim hands,
"a delicate neck.
"I wish I could...
"Mum."
Hello, is Jarek in?
He's gone out.
He'll be back soon... Come in.
Did Jarek tell you he wanted to marry me?
Indirectly, but I presumed it.
I can marry him right now.
- What about your father? - It doesn't matter.
He's not my father.
I've been looking for you.
I've forgotten the keys again.
It's our floor.
I'm sorry.
Good evening.
- You're going down? - Yes.
You knew about it?
Goodnight.
I assumed it.
- Did I pull you down? - No, we were going down.
- But this is the basement. - That's all right.
- Do you recognize mum? - Yes.
One of them may be your father.
And what's that?
That's Mum's.
They gave it to me in hospital.
When did you learn about it?
I never knew for sure.
I always suspected it.
You've deceived me.
I always considered you to be my daughter.
But you should have told me.
I wanted to give you the letter
when you were ten.
But you were too young for that.
Then I wanted to give it to you when you were fifteen.
But it turned out you were too big.
So I put it into the yellow envelope.
How damn easy!
I thought nothing would change between us.
But you're lying.
You are lying.
Look...
There are two candles there.
This one is mine
and that one yours.
If your candle goes out first, you've got the right to ask.
All right.
There was a draught.
Do you have a cigarette?
You won.
You can ask. I'll answer you in earnest.
Why did I read the letter?
Because you wanted me to.
The first time...
I happened to see it when we were moving.
It dropped out of your case.
I was sixteen then.
Fifteen and a half.
All right, fifteen and a half.
I put it back but I already knew it was there.
At first it did intrigue me.
You always took it with you when you were leaving.
But you didn't take it last time.
No.
Was it on purpose?
I took it.
Everywhere I went I kept it with me.
I opened it after a week.
Yes.
It's a comprehensive answer.
Have you ever read it?
No.
It wasn't a comprehensive answer.
They say at school: Think why you are saying this.
What's intentional and what's implied.
Don't you want to know?
What's implied is that
I've sensed what's in the letter.
I felt I betrayed someone. Even with my first boyfriend.
I didn't understand it.
It was you.
I'm constantly looking for someone.
For someone else.
But when someone touches me I think about your hands.
When I'm with someone, it's not with him but...
What shall I call you now?
I don't know.
Here you are.
How did it go?
Not bad.
Thanks for your drawings, I've copied them.
Hi, Anka!
He said it was a draught.
Something like this?
Yes, exactly the same.
- Thank you! - Does it help?
Sure it does! Look, Anka!
After a month's use. Do you believe it?
Have a try.
Are you having vodka?
Yes, Anka is.
When do you graduate?
In May.
And what about your dreams?
I'm sorry.
No, thanks, I was just passing by.
Bye!
Go after him!
- He's already gone. - I know.
So follow him by bus!
Or take a taxi! Go anywhere if you don't want to talk with me!
I'm not listening!
Leave me alone!
Who are you afraid of?
Me or yourself?
You don't have to be afraid.
I'm getting married.
Answer it.
Perhaps it's Krysia or Marta.
Perhaps it's Jarek. Answer it.
Hello.
I don't know.
No, I was asleep.
Call me tomorrow, OK?
He doesn't know he's a fiance yet?
He doesn't.
But I told his mother.
You're not afraid?
You want to talk?
Really?
You can... run away,
leave, get married...
But it won't change anything.
What I told you is the truth.
I've always felt guilty in bed.
Now I know why.
I was betraying you.
I didn't feel it.
Let's make a deal with this talk.
If I catch you out on a lie you'll admit it.
All right.
You lied when you said you didn't feel it.
Yes.
You did.
Yes, I did.
You live the way you want to.
You have absolute freedom.
I pretend it doesn't cost me at all.
I won't say "no" if you want to marry him.
Although you'd want me to.
I have no right to forbid you anything.
If I forbid you something or make you do something
I'll myself consider it to be jealousy.
Not a father's envy of a daughter
but simple male jealously of a woman.
I don't want it, I never did.
But that's the way it was.
But I don't know what it is...
Three years ago.
When you caught me in bed with Marcin.
- Was it the reason you left? - Yes.
I tried to excuse myself.
No father likes it when his daughter starts sleeping with men.
But I wasn't your daughter.
I don't know.
I often thought Mum might have been wrong.
Though women are said to know it for sure.
- But she could have been wrong. - No, she couldn't.
Women really know that.
How do you know?
I do.
Have you been pregnant?
Yes.
When?
Last year.
Listen...
I'd leave, disappear for whole nights...
I would leave you alone
because I wanted something to happen,
something that couldn't be reversed.
At first I wanted you to make love with someone.
But it didn't help.
From then on I've been dreaming that you have a baby.
That's why I had the abortion.
I didn't want you to be happy as usual.
That's why I didn't tell you about it.
I didn't want you to say: "Have the abortion, baby.
"No problem."
You didn't think that I didn't want anything irreversible?
What would you need my baby for?
To settle things in the way you did with the letter?
"Don't open until I'm dead."
I'm putting it back.
The letter's for you.
I don't want it.
When I cried as a kid you'd stroke my back.
Sometimes I cried on purpose
so that you'd put your hand under my pyjamas and stroke me.
I felt thrills.
You couldn't accept for long my growing up?
You wanted me to be a kid.
My breasts were growing and you let me bathe with a bra.
When I expected my first monthly you took me to the mountains.
You wanted to stop it somehow.
You didn't marry Marta nor any other.
I was afraid of them.
I needn't have.
Because you didn't marry.
You've been waiting for me haven't you?
Haven't you?
That's the way it had to be.
I'm not your daughter.
I'm a grown-up.
Do you want to touch me?
Do you?
All right.
Answer one more question.
Just one.
Why did you want me to read the letter?
Because I wanted the impossible.
- You knew it was impossible? - No.
That's why I hit you for the first time this morning.
For reading it.
For wanting you to read it.
For Mother.
Because she wrote you what she didn't tell me.
Because I love you.
And you are not my daughter.
Because everything could've been different.
Because the past will never come back.
The times when you'd stroke my back when I was crying.
"The king was of sugar,"
"The page of honey cake,
"The princess of marzipan."
Dad!
Daddy!
Dad, I lied to you.
I didn't open the letter.
I wrote it myself. The things I told you at the airport.
I saw Mum's handwriting on the envelope and I forged it.
Dad, what's in Mum's letter?
I don't know.
Where were you going?
To buy milk.
I know what we shall do with the letter.
This is original one.
Will you help me?
Yes.
"My little daughter...
Td like to..."
Show you? Tell you!
"I'd like to tell you
"Something very imp..."
Important.
"Michal..."
M?
M...
"Michal is not..."
The rest is burnt.
Starring
Directed by
Director of Photography