TELEWIZJA POLSKA presents
a film from the DECALOGUE series
DECALOGUE EIGHT
Screenplay
Good morning.
Off on a trip this early or just back from one?
Just back from Szczecin. My goodness!
You struck lucky?
A series commemorating the 1931 German flight over the North Pole.
Polarfahrt.
- By zeppelin? - Three zeppelins! My goodness!
You must drop by and show them to me. Goodbye!
Goodbye!
I'll do that.
- Good morning. - Good morning Professor.
The Dean would like a word with you.
Good morning, Professor.
We met in America.
Am I right?
You translated my works, if my memory serves?
Almost all of them.
You speak Polish so well. And here I've been grappling with English.
Grappling very well.
Mrs Loranc is here under the exchange scheme.
She's interested in your work.
She'd like to attend your class.
I'd be delighted.
Will I see you today?
If you agree.
Excuse me for a moment.
Mrs Elzbieta Loranc
works in an American institute
which studies the fates of Jews
rescued from the Holocaust.
Now back to our topic - the ethical hell.
Who's first today?
So far we've been presented with two political stories for analysis
and one which we'd best call moral.
Go ahead.
Take the following situation: A man is dying of cancer.
That's the third time we've had cancer this year.
He's being treated by a first-rate doctor,
who, a crucial point, is a Catholic.
The doctor lives in the same building as the patient and his wife.
The wife begins waylaying the doctor
to find out if her husband is going to live or die
and, if so, when.
The doctor can't tell her.
To tell her would be to pass sentence.
Being a devout Catholic, he can't do that.
She becomes so persistent
that the doctor suspects her of having an ulterior motive.
His suspicions are correct.
The wife is pregnant by another man.
Her husband doesn't know.
It's also her first pregnancy.
She'd been unable to have children before.
The woman loves her newly conceived child.
But she also loves her husband.
If he doesn't die
she'll be forced to get rid of the baby.
If he does die, she can have the child.
Like it or not, the doctor knows the child's life is in his hands.
I know how the story ends.
Warsaw's a small place.
To make it more difficult for you - the child's alive.
And that, perhaps, is what matters most in this story.
I'm too far away to record.
I said that the child was alive,
and that I thought that was the most important thing.
I want you to describe the characters of the actors
and their motives.
What will be piquant is that we both know the originals.
Though I daresay, not the same people.
Yes, Professor.
Thank you.
Anyone else?
In that case, let's analyse the earlier stories.
Yes?
You said it was the life of the child that mattered most.
That's right.
I thought... That is if you don't mind me joining in?
Of course not. We're all equal here.
I'd like...
I'd like to recount a certain incident.
We'll be interested to hear it.
My story has one drawback for you.
It took place in the past.
But it also has a virtue.
It's a true story.
Does what I said about the life of the child has some kind of significance for you?
Yes, it does.
Some significance.
It's 1943. February, depth of winter.
The heroine is a 6-year-old Jewish girl
hiding out in the cellar of a Polish home.
But she has to leave.
Her father's in the Ghetto. His friends look for a new refuge for her.
They find a likely place.
But the new caretakers insist on the girl having a baptismal certificate.
It's a cold dark evening.
The girl and her guardian
come to the home of the people who've agreed to act as godparents.
It's a young Catholic couple.
The girl's frozen.
It's taken her all afternoon to cross the city.
She and her guardian enter the apartment.
The husband's agitated, the wife composed.
They offer them tea.
The girl could use it but time's pressing.
The priest's waiting and the curfew's approaching.
But instead of getting dressed to go out the woman asks them to be seated.
Excuse me!
Please, leave!
Thank you.
You said that it was 1943?
Yes, February 1943.
In Warsaw?
Yes.
Odynca street in South Warsaw.
What happened then?
What happened... Yes.
They sat down at a table.
The man paces the room nervously.
They eye one another.
The woman decides to say what the man couldn't bring himself to.
That they have to go back on their promise.
On reflection they've found
that it is not in them to lie before the God in whom they believe.
Who, it is true, enjoins mercy,
but forbids the bearing of false witness.
They knew the purpose of this lie
but it was irreconcilable with their principles.
That was it.
The girl and her guardian stand up.
"Finish your tea," the woman says to the girl.
She takes a sip from her cup, but lowers it on catching her guardian's eye.
Downstairs, she sees him halt in the entrance to the building.
"It's almost curfew," the girls says.
But he goes on standing there.
Was there anyone else...
...in the apartment?
An older man,
in a wheelchair, I think, with his back turned.
Any specific details?
The cups were good quality, but each was different.
A green kerosene lamp stood on the table. It was unlit.
Throughout the conversation the man kept his hand in his pocket.
That's all in the way of details.
Does anybody have any questions? No?
Doubts?
If that couple really were Catholics, the motive's hard to believe.
It wouldn't have been false witness against somebody.
It's the only one motive I know. It seemed genuine enough then.
What other motives could there be?
What do you think?
I don't know.
I can't think of any
that could justify such a decision.
Yes?
Fear. If they'd once seen the German discover a Jewish child,
smash its brains in
and shoot the family harbouring it.
Fear, yes.
But is fear excuse enough?
I was only suggesting a motive,
not judging.
We're speculating.
I want you to give your own individual accounts
of the ethical issues that arise here.
You will make out a plausible case
for the woman's point of view.
Try and understand her.
Thank you.
It wasn't...
South Warsaw.
No.
Midtown.
Noakowski street?
Yes.
It was you.
Yes, me.
And you're alive.
All my life I've thought...
Whenever I see someone playing with a gold chain, I think, God...
You're alive.
I found a safe place across the river.
Relatives of the man who brought me to you.
They were moonshiners.
I lived with the mash for two years.
They're with me in America. Though the man's now dead.
And you came over here...
to watch my face...
when you told that story.
I almost told it when you were in America.
I made several attempts to write,
I tried to come here.
If it hadn't been for your remark about the child...
I'd never have...
Yes, I understand.
There's a theory that people who rescue others have special traits,
as do those who need rescuing.
I guess so. I guess there are such traits.
You have them.
Me?
Yes.
It's well known how you behaved after the business with me.
Because of you,
a number of people from my world are still alive.
It's interesting how easily that girl
saw through that seemingly Catholic reasoning.
The ashtray's there.
You don't smoke.
But I watch.
Where are you staying? Can I drop you?
You once drove me all the way across New York.
I'm at the Victoria. Barely 300 metres away, I'm afraid.
Then why don't you come and have supper with me?
This is where you live?
No.
This is this place.
Yes.
It was here, in this gateway.
You said: "Come on, it's almost curfew."
Elzbieta!
What the hell?
I didn't hear it ring.
I once...
Excuse me, but was there a woman here?
No. Not for a long time.
A number of families live here?
Five! So ring the right bell.
We don't get on too well.
Come about the ad? Come on in.
No, I'm looking for a friend.
A woman, dark hair, tall.
Bullshit.
I'm looking for a friend...
Bullshit.
Is there another exit from this gateway?
- Come about the ad? - No.
No other exit. This is a respectable house.
A friend of mine came here.
- About the ad? - No. She hasn't come out.
- Then she didn't come in. - She did.
Elzbieta!
Bullshit!
My God! I've been searching for you!
I'm here.
Your disappearance frightened me.
I thought you hadn't been here.
I'm here.
A horrible place.
I called at my old apartment.
It was here that I saw my father's friend, totally at a loss.
I resolved that I'd never be so afraid again.
Why didn't you come here for forty years?
Didn't you want to see this place?
No.
It's too humiliating.
Having to be helped?
We don't like to see witnesses of our humiliation.
Even if they're only buildings.
We investigate, analyse, describe...
But how do you solve that injustice?
Why can some be rescuers and others can only be rescued?
Do you know?
No, I don't.
Let's go.
It's cosy here.
I'm on a diet.
I wasn't expecting anybody.
The person I remember couldn't have grown into a woman like you.
But I did.
You gave me a scare.
Back there on Noakowski street.
I'm sorry.
If you've come thousands of miles
in the hope of learning some secret
you're going to be disappointed.
The reason why I had to...
get rid of you, are prosaic.
What that did to my life is another matter.
But let's not go into that.
That man
who kept his hand in his pocket was my husband.
He's been dead since 1952.
Yes, I know.
During the war he was an officer in the Resistance.
We'd been warned that the people you were going to
were Gestapo agents.
That you, the priest and your guardian
would lead the Gestapo to us, to the organisation.
Arrests could have snowballed.
That's the whole secret.
So simple when you think about it.
Later it turned out that those people had been wrongly suspected.
They came within an inch of execution as traitors.
But you assumed...
Of course you did.
And you have lived with that certainty for forty years.
While I didn't know you were alive.
I turned my back on you.
I sent you to almost certain death.
And I knew what I was doing.
Yes, you're right.
There's no cause, no idea, there's nothing
that's more important than the life of a child.
What do you tell your students?
How one should live?
I don't tell them.
I try to help them arrive there for themselves.
Arrive where?
At good.
It exists.
I believe it's there in every human being.
Situations bring out good or evil.
That evening didn't bring out the good in me.
Who is the judge of that?
The one who is inside each of us.
There's no reference to God in your works.
I don't attend church.
I don't use the word "God".
Sometimes you don't need to use words.
People are free.
They can choose.
If they want to,
they can leave God outside of themselves.
What's there instead?
Loneliness here...
and there.
Go on, try and think it through.
If there is a void,
if there really is a void,
then in that case...
Yes. I should know.
Excuse me.
May I?
I didn't know you had guests. Good evening.
I wanted to show you those stamps.
Beautiful. I mean it.
Please tell your son if you see him.
It always interested him.
Polarfahrt, three Zeppelins. 1931.
Exactly.
- Good night. - Good night.
Thank you very much.
He collects stamps.
More than that, I think.
He shows them to me the way people display their grandchildren
or snaps of their children.
He looked like a neighbour in that sweater.
Yes, a neighbour.
As a matter of fact the doctor and the patient
we were discussing at the seminar
also live in this building.
An interesting house.
No more than any other.
"Every house and every room has people who..."
and so on and so forth.
Exactly.
Thank you.
The people I was going to be taken to,
do you know them?
Yes.
If that was your question.
Could I see them?
You'd like to?
Very well. I'll take you there tomorrow.
A small tailor's shop across the river.
But I'll wait outside.
I've seen them only once since the war.
I said I was sorry.
It was all I could manage.
But it's not enough.
If it makes no difference to you,
why don't you stay the night here?
There's a spare room. It's hardly ever used.
Do you like that?
- Do you like that? - What are you doing?
There's this guy on TV.
I'll prove I'm better.
That was the Rubber Stand. He can't do it.
How do you do it?
Anybody can. It's a matter of practice.
Bend over backwards.
A little more.
You can't?
Too bad. It's too late to learn now.
Excuse me.
Join me for breakfast?
Something other than... "Day 15: 50 g cottage cheese
and coffee without the sugar."
I'll eat.
- Like you, I rise early. - I'll join you.
For a normal breakfast?
The room....
The room in which I slept, was it your son's room?
Yes, his.
He doesn't live here, does he?
No. He didn't want to be with me.
It was you who bought the flowers?
Yes.
I saw you putting fresh ones on the table.
Thank you.
Where is he?
The shortest answer is, a long way away from me.
This is it.
I'll do my shopping and collect you.
Can I help you?
I'd like to talk with you.
Good God! With me?
I'm Elzbieta Loranc.
I don't know you.
We almost met during the war.
Wait a second. I don't want to talk about what happened during the war.
I don't want to talk about what happened after the war.
I don't want to talk about what's now.
I can make you a suit, a coat, a costume.
Why don't you pick out a model?
You were to rescue me, thank you for wanting to.
Got your own material?
It's hard to buy anything these days.
I was six then. It was in February, 1943.
I was then...
twenty-two.
So what will it be? A coat?
You have very old magazines.
Would you be offended if I sent you newer ones?
No. This one, too, was brought to me from abroad.
But that was many years ago.
Later there were no opportunities.
You're sure you don't want to talk to me?
Absolutely!
I hung around, just in case.
He wanted to make me a coat.
I thought he might. He's been through a lot.
Too much, perhaps.
What a strange country this is!
You prayed yesterday.
Yes.
Cast
Directed by
Director of Photography
Music