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Decalogue IX


Nine: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife

The players? Roman, a successful heart surgeon. Hanka his wife. And a blonde haired Adonis.

The set-up? A man gets a diagnosis that, that small problem he's been experiencing the last couple of years has now become permanent affliction. He of course, immediately begins to obsess about his wife's (in)fidelity.

Unlike the old doctor in episode two, the doctor Roman consults, has no qualms about laying it all out on the table. The doctor knows his odds for survival are next to none. So he tells him the point blank: get your affairs in order and ... end your marriage. The doctor already knows this is going to drive him emerald green with jealously.

Up until this point all the stories have been solid moral dramas, here we take a swing into black comedy. This is upper class couple has had a professional partnership; free from any want; separate lives, yet joined in all the socially right places. It was unwritten between the both of them, that little affairs of the heart, spiced up the marriage. But now, for them to remain together, their marriage actually has to work. His wife still adores him and says physical love isn't that important, although she doesn't know it yet---but for the good of the marriage---he's going to require she also give up those extra marital activities.

Kilvinksi cycles past Roman after his diagnosis, when he's feeling suicidal and tries to crash his car. Roman pedals past him a second time like a madman, his death by bicycle all planned out as he sprints like Lance Armstrong towards that fatal highway overpass.

Brownie points for working in a few limp dick jokes; the flaccid gas nozzle; the soprano gesturing with her thumb and her forefinger: this fricking big. But demerit points for the soprano's story as a bizarre counterpoint to their marriage. The young woman would actually prefer to live a simple life as a wife and a mother without the singing; it's her mother pushing her to have the life threatening operation, she's got a one in a million voice, if the operation doesn't kill her, her future as a rich and famous diva is guaranteed, These high stakes doesn't exactly match up to the banality of their bedroom drama. Also, the last scene between Roman and the soprano was unclear, did he talk her out of the operation ... or into it? This whole episode feels slightly unfinished.



"Cuckoo, cuckoo"