In class February 24, we watched two episodes of the Decalogue including commandment 1: “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have any strange gods before Me” and commandment 5: "Thou shall not kill.” In the first episode, I found it fascinating that the man by the lake resembled God. The beginning of the film the man in the coat was staring into the camera which depicted God gazing into souls. The little boy in the film, Pawel is 11-years-old. He lives with his father, who is an IT-teacher at the university. The father was not a religious man. In fact, he put technology and science before God. Pawel looks up to his father for his intelligence - they bond over solving math problems together. Pawel and his father agree on the fact that computers create miracles. Ironically, it’s Jesus that performed miracles. However, Pawel still showed interest in the concepts that were not covered by calculations and measurements, such as death and God. When he asks his father about the dog that died his father references the anatomy aspect of the heart not pumping blood after death. However, when he wonders about his aunt's faith, he asks about God and the soul. Due to the calculations from the computer, Pawel could skate on the frozen lake but the father neglected to consider his own common sense and Pawel died after falling through the ice in the lake.
His father suffered in more than one aspect; he lost his son, his science and calculations failed him, and lost confidence in being a good father. The loss of his son did not bring him closer to God nor faith, in fact, it pushed him to resent it which is portrayed by his father knocking over the altar to honor the children who died in the lake while ice skating. The boy is very curious about life and strives for answers. The aunt comforts Pawel’s curiosity by telling him to lean on God for answers. Many humans turn to religion and a belief system to find the unknown answers. Religion is comforting. One consideration is that God is punishing Pawel’s father for not following the commandment “thou shalt not have any strange gods before Me,” however God is not one to seek revenge but it can still be incorporated. The episode is a mystery because had the father been more faithful would the son have died, so would it have been a tragedy?
In the fifth episode, “Thou Shall Not Kill,” provides an eye-opening perception on the political system and the flaws within execution. Is it fair to have an eye for eye system? It’s easy to hate the convicted suspect and seek revenge through the death penalty but there are two sides to every story. Instead of convicting all killers as criminals the judicial system should learn more of the suspect's position to better understand the situation from a holistic perspective. However, that is a lot easier said than do because if my loved one was killed I would find justice in making inducing pain on the killer. That’s a very humanistic position. The film enabled the audience to get an understanding of the killer’s perspective and it uprooted an emotional response when the killer began talking about how his sister was killed. It was ironic how the judicial system was so fast to execute the boy after reviewing the evidence. If there was false evidence placed and the boy was innocent, it wouldn’t have mattered the judge was focused on the facts at hand. They would have still executed the boy. Before DNA testing there must have been hundreds of cases where the suspect was convicted and executed though he or she was innocent.
God’s commandment is often disregarded because of an emotional response to frustration and anger. The fact that the judicial system was quite to execute a man depicted that they are no different than the criminal being executed. But what makes it okay for the judicial system to execute without any punishment?
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