The Jewish practice of Midrash, which guides the reader to explore personal meanings rather than the strict verbal actualities of text relates closely to Decalogue, as this movie causes the viewer to look deeper into the scenes rather than just taking them at face value. For the Ten Commandments, the themes must be on a personal level, or integration of the values will not be present in the life of the individual. To help to engrain these principles onto ones moral tablet, the deeper meaning must be sought and understood before it can truly become a part of one’s life. Religion is not just a set of rules to be memorized and followed, but a deeper spiritual journey that integrates divine meaning into the human heart. The movie Decalogue helps to portray this journey through various film techniques.
The first film portrays the commandment of “thou shalt have no other gods before me”. This other god is represented as the computer that the father uses frequently in many scenes. The son wants to go out and skate on the ice so the father computes whether or not it is safe with the computer. He puts all his faith in what the computer says and leaves no room for what he feels or his intuition as a father. His faith in technology rules his decisions and he is blinded by its seeming perfection. At first, we see the computer as just a helpful tool, but as the father uses it more and more, we see that it his foundation in life. When his son dies because the computer calculation was inaccurate, we see the father confused and not able to comprehend that his computer, his god, had failed him. The father is then thrown into the struggle to find meaning in everything because the one thing he believed to be infallible lead to the death of his son. He feels as though his universe has lost its center, by losing his son and his belief that technology is perfect. I think we can all relate to this feeling when something unexpected happens. We all have many gods, but this film represents what happens when these gods take center stage in our lives and our faith no longer rest in the one true God, but in things we believe in with the same faith. Instead of reading this or seeing it directly played out, the viewer comes to the conclusion on their own, and sees the meaning behind the scenes of the film, taking a personal approach to finding out what exactly this commandment means in real life.
The second film works to display Midrash through the interpretation of death in various facets of life. This portrays a young man of peculiar character as he goes through his days being cruel towards others. He ends up killing a taxi driver, which people automatically see as wrong, the literal meaning of the commandment of “thou shalt not murder”. But as the story progresses, the murderer himself is put to death by the law, for punishment of taking another man’s life. In this scene, we see murder again as a savage act, but some would say it was deserved. Herein lies the complexity of how death and murder are viewed today, as well as the struggle of punishment and justice when crimes have been committed. Most would say the first murder was unjust and out of malice and anger, most definitely a sin against the commandment. But the second killing, that where murderer himself is killed, some might argue was justified, that he deserved to die for what he did. Midrash, then, allows the viewer to see both murders and approach the commandment with a personal perspective, whether it be that all murder is violent and unjust (what the film seems to portray in its dealings with both killing scenes) or that somehow, these deaths differ from one another. The film leaves the viewer with the struggle to identify meaning in what murder is. The feeling associated with the murder scenes help to guide the reader to face the challenge of finding a deeper understanding of what it means to kill. By viewing the scenes of these multiple lives, the viewer is reflecting upon the moments in their own life as well as allowing the outsider perspective to bring them a step back and look at the meaning of eternity from a viewpoint not previously taken. The meaning of murder is then extricated from the merging of personal experience and what the film portrays. Nothing is taken at face value, and a deeper meaning arises, a perfect example of Midrash through the medium of film.
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