Emotions as a Way of Connecting in the Decalogue

In the Decalogue, specifically in the film which communicates the commandment “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”, we see the reality that emotions unite us. We all understand love, suffering, and the wide array of other emotions experienced in one’s time on the earth. In this way, emotions go against division, bringing unity. The film relates feeling to meaning, this is communicated to the viewer in an encounter Pavel has with his aunt. Pavel asks his aunt the question, “where’s God?”. His aunt answers him by simply giving him a hug. Pavel responds to this act by saying “I love you”, to which his aunt replies “that’s where God is”. I really loved the Aunt’s answer to a question that is so often made to be complex and confusing. Rather than offering Pavel abstractions, such as the idea that God is in the sky or in Heaven, she gives him something concrete that he can feel inside himself and know. Feeling and meaning are again related in a scene that takes place after Pavel’s death.. The viewer finds Pavel’s father pushing over the altar in a church in great distress. As a result, the candles tip over, which causes the wax to drip down on  an image of the Madonna. The placement is such that it appears that the Madonna is also crying, sharing in the suffering of the father, in a way connecting the human with the divine. Similarly, the Man by the fire is a sort of Christ-figure in that he appears as all seeing. At the beginning of the film, the viewer finds him with a certain profound look on his face, as though there is a deep stirring in him. Ever stationed by the pond, this man sees Pavel’s dad checking the ide and likely also witnesses Pavel’s death. At one point, the viewer sees him wipe a tear from his cheek and is perhaps reminded that Jesus wept.