Decalogue II

Saw Decalogue part II, Thou shalt not take the name of the lord thy god in vain. I admit to being very confused by this one. I don't see how this episode connects to this commandment, although I had the juvenile, Sunday-school impression that this commandment was mainly about not saying "god damn it" and so forth and I don't see how to mine much drama out of that pedantic interpretation anyway.

There was a different set of characters this time around which I am very grateful for (just imagine how trite and patronizing it would have been if one family, say, had had to learn the lessons of each of the ten commandments over the course of the episodes) The same genius for resonant images is on display, as is the same chilly plotting. I was particularly struck with the image of the wasp crawling out of a cup of coffee and another image of a coffee cup shattering. The female in this I found awesomely severe. Unable to decide between two terrible choices, her every movement has the abstracted thoughtfulness of someone with much on her mind.

So, I'm liking this series a lot. It's still too austere for me to really go nuts over it, and I feel I'm doing it a severe disservice by not discussing each episode in some classroom environment, but it's fascinating and puzzling and I'm liking it.