Decalogue 7 & 8

The Decalogue 7 (which plays brilliantly on 'Thou shalt not steal') tells the story of Majka, who kidnaps her daughter Ania from her own mother, who is herself extremely attached to her granddaughter. A surreal episode, especially in terms of the visual frames that often interplay with the glances of the child, the plot relies on the tension between the two mothers Ewa and Majka, while little Ania is the victim of them both.

The Decalogue 8 is about a Jewish woman, Elzbieta, who comes back to Warsaw after many years to question the philosophy professor who refused to give her shelter during World War II. This episode touches in such a poetic yet dramatic way on one of the main themes of The Decaelogue: the existence of moral and ethical contradictions that are out of the control of even well-intentioned individuals.