"Actor: Janusz Gajos"

• Dekalog - The Ten Commandments - Parts 1-5 | DVD | (27/05/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  A terrible idea, of course", was Krzysztof Kieœlowski's first reaction when his co-scriptwriter, Krzysztof Piesiewicz, first suggested the idea for Dekalog--a series of 10 one-hour films, each inspired by one of the Ten Commandments. But from this unpromising beginning came an edgy, unsettling tour de force, the culmination of Kieœlowski's work in his native Poland and, quite possibly, the last cinematic masterpiece to come out of Communist Eastern Europe. The full Dekalog consists of ten one-hour films: this pair of double discs contains the first five. The links to the specific commandments are often oblique and imprecise, and shouldn't be taken too literally. Kieœlowski is using this framework not as a direct exposition of Mosaic Law, nor even as a commentary on its relevance today, but rather as a series of meditations on the complexity of moral choices. All the films are set in the same drab high-rise Warsaw housing estate, and characters from one story will show up the background of others, passing across the frame as they go about their business. One young man who appears in nearly all the films never plays a leading role nor even speaks a line, but remains a watchful, melancholy presence, haunting and disquieting, gazing at the events unfolding around him like an uneasy conscience. Grim though these stories are, there's often a note of ironic humour leavening the overall bleakness. But this set ends with one of the grimmest of all. In Dekalog 5 a young man murders a taxi driver for no apparent reason, then is executed himself. Both deaths are equally squalid and appalling. This episode was later expanded to feature-film length with the title A Short Film About Killing. The greater length enhanced its impact; it's a pity that room wasn't found for that longer version here. On the DVDs: Dekalog, Parts 1-5 offers very little additional material. The second disc, which contains episodes 4 and 5, also includes a brief on-screen text biography and filmography for Kieœlowski. The films are shown in their original 4:3 ratio, in a crisp clean transfer. --Philip Kemp

• Three Colours White | DVD | (29/10/2001) from £2.95   |  Saving you £17.04 (577.63%)   |  RRP £19.99

  White is the second of witty Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowki's "three colours" trilogy Blue, White, and Red--the three colours of the French flag, symbolising liberty, equality and fraternity. White is an ironic comedy brimming over with the hard laughs of despair, ecstasy, ambition and longing played in a minor key. Down-and-out Polish immigrant Karol Karol is desperate to get out of France. He's obsessed with his French soon-to-be ex-wife (Before Sunrise's Julie Delpy), his French bank account is frozen, and he's fed up with the inequality of it all. Penniless, he convinces a fellow Pole to smuggle him home in a suitcase--which then gets stolen from the airport. The unhappy thieves beat him and dump him in a snowy rock pit. Things can only get better, right? The story evolves into a wickedly funny anti-romance, an inverse Romeo and Juliet. Because it's in two foreign languages, the dialogue can be occasionally hard to follow, but some of the most genuinely funny and touching moments need no verbal explanation. --Grant Balfour

• The Interrogation | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  After a one-night stand with a military officer a cabaret singer is imprisoned by the secret police without ever being informed of her alleged crime. For the next five years she is subjected to harrowing torture and harassment which she doggedly withstands in a struggle to maintain her dignity and sanity. Interrogation was banned by the Polish government for being 'inflammatory and dangerous'. Years later director Bugjaski smuggled a copy out of the country and it s

• Escape from the Liberty Cinema | DVD | (11/01/2016) from £12.45   |  Saving you £0.54 (4.34%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Marczewski's anti-totalitarian satire is a darkly comic examination of censorship. Adapting the premise of Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo to late 1980s Poland, the film centres on a provincial film censor who is horrified to discover that the actors in a trite romantic weepie are refusing to perform their roles. Directed by one of Poland's leading intellectual - and much censored - filmmakers, this multi-awardwinning feature is a key film of the seismic political changes of 1989, and an enthusiastic manifesto for the freedom of the artist - and ultimately, of all humanity.