Anna Backens - Decalogue 1

"You shall have no other gods before Me." In Exodus 20:3, the Lord gave these commandments to Moses to give to the Israelites so that they would know how to live their lives according to God. In Decalogue 1, Krzysztof is highly interested in science and mathematics and has started to believe that all the answers for life can be calculated. His sister does not share the same belief, she thinks that one has to have faith in order to understand the world. Pawal is young but lives with his father and imitates his father's beliefs until one day he asks his aunt about spirituality, she then asks his father if Pawal can take religion classes, he agrees. Krzysztof has two computers in the house and he has become almost entirely dependent on them for answers. Pawal has learned to do the same and anytime he has a question, he types it into the computer. The whole house is rigged up to the computer so that Pawal shows his aunt how he can turn on the water in the house or unlock the doors by pressing a button. So, Krysztof and Pawal have built a home that is nearly controlled by technology. Krysztof thinks that contentment can be found in science. He trusts computers so much that after doing a small calculation, he allows Pawal to skate on the ice because it should be thick enough. His calculations are wrong and Pawal falls through the ice. As Krzysztof was so bound to technology, he had made it a god, to where he put his son's life in danger because of a computer's answer.When he cannot find his son several hours after he told him to go swimming, he panics because he had been wrong. by not following the first commandment, he had put his faith in something else, it costs him the life of his son. The imagery was so unique as he enters a church in despair. There is a black Madonna on the wall in front of him and there are some candles burning. Out of rage, he pushes the candles over and some wax falls on her cheek. This makes it seem that she is crying over his loss as well. The aunt had a quite a different response, because of her personal faith, during the frenzy, her facial expressions were sadness and lament. She knew that her brother had been foolish for putting all of his faith and life into his computer.