Dekalog VI

Saw Dekalog VI, Thou shalt not commit adultery. A lot of sex in this one. Nothing too crazy though (this is TV after all.) The plot follows a boy who is obsessed with and spies on his across-the-courtyard neighbor, an adult woman who is perhaps an artist and who has many boyfriends. In this post-Hitchcock land, it's always more interesting (and entertaining) to imagine a voyeur as a kind of audience stand-in. to aid us in this endeavor, the boy is cast as a kind of camera early on. One of our first shots of him is through a teller window, his eyes perfectly framed by the little circular hole in the plexiglass. The woman's apartment has this strange fish-eye lens in the window which, although it's never the center of a frame or anything, none the less renders many of her bedroom scenes as little play-house dioramas. The boy later reveals he has excellent memory and can play back any scene he wants to in his head. I felt an homage to Hitchcock's Rear Window in certain scenes, but it may be referencing something slightly more general than Hitchcock specifically.

Of course the peeping tom situation comes to light and the woman exacts fittingly ironic revenge by letting him be her boyfriend for a bit. He is of course completely out of his depth and terrified. He leaves her in a panic and she, fearing for his safety, becomes his watcher/pursuer in the end. One of the last shots is of her eyes framed by the plexiglass hole. Very fun.

But then there's also this adultery thing. Disaster seems to befall the pair when they get closer together. Neither of them really betray the love of anyone else. In a way perhaps she betrays him by dating and pursuing him? This seems a bit shoddy though, blaming the victim for seeking satisfaction from her stalker. True, her actions are not 100% moral (which 100% moral action would be to forgive) but this doesn't seem right to me. Does he betray his love for her by interfering with her life and revealing his obsession with her? This isn't really satisfying to me either. There is also some business with milk and a pendulum that I don't understand. A nice diorama image of her arm holding out this pendulum, btw.

I think I got too distracted and hung up on the "boy = camera" theme-spotting fun. Too bad. At least I have better subs now! I was driven to seek out new subs when an non-correctable error in mine made one subtitle show up for 2 solid minutes while rapid, untranslated dialogue flowed.

Edit: check out the imdb review. I can only aspire to such heights of pretension. "abusive collector of undue slices of reality" indeed.