Do young couples justify refusing help? What's the secret behind it? What was the fate of that Jewish girl? Will she survive? ... Nearly forty years later, life has an answer. This is the story told in Polish director Kislowski's film "The Eighth Commandments".
The real life of human beings has never been an ideal one: one only needs to follow some simple and clear concepts, make a clear judgment on right and wrong, and act accordingly without hindrance. On the contrary, what people do not want to face but often encounter is always deep in some kind of predicament and forced to make a dilemma. At this time, "goodness" may also bring unavoidable pain, and even the deeper the "goodness", the deeper the pain, which seems to be a paradox.
It turned out that the young couple got the wrong information: the person who was going to adopt the Jewish girl might be a Nazi informant, and the goal of the Nazis was to break down the underground organization that the young couple participated in. In order to protect the organization, in order to protect the lives of more people, we can only give up the rescue of this girl. This reason should be sufficient, but it does not relieve the pain and guilt in the hearts of those who made the decision. Decades later, as a university professor, she is still very sensitively aware of the fact that a woman's simple act of playing with a necklace has nothing to do with the one who was only one-sided in the past. Jewish girls are so similar.
"Nothing is more important than the life of a child." This line in "The Eighth Commandments" reminds me of another movie: "Sophie's Choice", also during World War II, in a Nazi concentration camp, a Jewish mother With two children, a boy and a girl. The Nazi officer said to his mother: You can choose, but you can only keep one, otherwise you will take both, and you must decide immediately in person. The one taken away will die immediately, and the one left behind may live. For a mother, this is a choice that is thousands of times more painful than death. The evil of the Nazis (in fact, the malevolent side of human nature) is undoubtedly revealed here.
The choice dilemma in The Eighth Ten Commandments is also caused by the Nazis. In the face of the huge "evil" forces, the "good" bears a double burden, not only to bear the personal risks brought by the "evil", but also to bear a huge moral burden for the side that may be missed by the choice of the "good" psychological stress. I remember an old saying in China: "If you can be as good as you want, you need to be worthy of my heart." "Being as good as you want" may never be possible, but is it really possible to "be worthy of my heart"? If what you have is absolutely genuine, non-utilitarian "goodness."
Kislowski said: "I think integrity is an extremely complex combination. We can never say 'I'm honest' or 'I'm dishonest'. In all our actions and situations, we will find themselves in a position where there is really no way out - and even if there is a way out, it's not a good way out or a better way out, it's just relatively better than other options." Yes, it's just better than other options Relatively better.
One question is, where did the "evil" that caused this predicament come from, and can it be eliminated? Kislowski thinks this way: "People are born to want to be good people. The question is: If human beings are inherently good, where does evil come from? I don't have a very logical and reasonable answer. My The theory is: Generally speaking, evil breeds because people always find themselves incapable of doing good at some stage. The cause of evil is frustration. Whether people change consciously or unconsciously, it is impossible outside. There are so many reasons why people are incapable of doing good, there are hundreds of different reasons."
The evil of the Nazis was largely driven by frustration, and there were thousands of reasons that ordinary people could embrace. In that era, too many people not only lost the ability to do good, but even became the tools and embodiment of evil. Throughout the thousands of years of human civilization history, in general, we really can't see how much our "human nature" has changed. Perhaps "evil" is inherently human, just as "good" is also human. What do you think? Neither pessimism nor optimism can change this fact.
Optimistic people may think that the gradual establishment and improvement of the system can limit or restrain the occurrence of the "evil" side of human nature, while those who pursue the ultimate may think that there is a perfect and ultimate standard system that can turn the world into a paradise. At the same time as human development and progress, in the pursuit of a good or relatively good system, how much effect has been achieved, in fact, at present, only some relative and difficult to measure concepts have been obtained. However, it is in the course of this history that the proliferation of "evil" is enough to be frightening and shocking. It still seems to be a dilemma, but there is no alternative. Questions outside the body may never get the ultimate answer, but for individuals, it is more real to look back at the heart.
"Then today, today, do you know what is most important?"
"I know that there is no philosophy, no belief, nothing is more important than a child's life."
"I always thought so. So what do you and your students say? How are they supposed to live?"
"I don't tell them that. So I teach so that they can get there on their own."
"Where?"
"Goodness. Goodness exists, I believe, In everyone's heart. Our situation either turns on good or turns on bad. The world at that time, that night, didn't arouse good feelings in me."
Occasional life can only rely on its own truth, loneliness and distress, desire and temptation, moral anxiety, meaning of life... all of these cannot be pinned to the outside world (I don't know how much religion can do), There will never be an ultimate or complete solution, only oneself can afford it, and the premise of being able to afford it is first and foremost being able to face oneself and face one's truth. Therefore, seeking truth is a greater good, and a warmer and more human way. Even the absurd life, as existentialists believe, has no meaning that precedes existence. The meaning of human beings can still be found in the process of "carrying on this meaningless life", and we still have to face ourselves truthfully and face our truth.
The point of Kislowski's film The Ten Commandments is to open the "goods", "in order for them to arrive on their own." He said: "We are living in difficult times, in Poland everything is a piece of shit. Chaos, no one knows exactly what is right, what is wrong, or even why we live, maybe we should go back to the simplest, most basic, most primitive principles of survival that teach people how to live.”
It also happened once: on the streets of Berlin, a woman over fifty recognized Kislowski, took his hand, and began to cry. It turned out that this woman and her daughter were strangers even though they lived together. Not long ago, the mother and daughter watched Kislovsky's "Ten Commandments" together on TV. The daughter suddenly came over and kissed her mother. Kislowski felt that it was worth making that movie just for that kiss, for that woman, even if the love of the kiss lasted only five minutes.
In "The Eighth Commandments", the Jewish girl who was in need of salvation later thought: "Those who save others have a special quality." It can also be said to be a "good" quality. Some people may maintain this noble quality for a lifetime, some people only last five minutes, and some people may never be inspired. A work of art is a great inspirational medium. For Kislowski, the medium is cinema. There is a meaningless but very interesting real detail: Kislovsky applied for the film school that year, but failed the exam twice, and took the exam again the third year. The last exam was an oral exam, and the examiner asked the last one. Question: "What are the media of mass communication?" Kislowski replied: "Trams, buses, planes." As a result, he finally passed the exam.
Kislowski said: "I like to observe the fragments of life, and I like to take pictures of life that I have glimpsed without knowing the causes and consequences." Kislowski's film career, from shooting real-life documentaries At the beginning, after that he began to pay attention to the truth of the human heart. One day, it was cold and it was raining, and Kislowski lost a glove. He stumbled across a lawyer friend who was also wandering around and had nothing to do on the street, his script collaborator, the movie The Ten Commandments just started by accident.
In front of Kislowski's film-literary script "The Eighth Ten Commandments" are written these words: "Movies are really only a part of our lives. . . . Movies also exist in our hearts. Somewhere, they become a part of our own life, our inner selves. They remain in us like anything else that really ever happened.
" From the following books:
"Ten Commandments" by Kieslowski (Nanhai Publishing Company in 2003)
"Kieslowski on Kieslowski" edited by Stoke (Wenhui Press in 2003)
" Heavy Flesh--The Narrative Language of Modern Ethics, Liu Xiaofeng (Shanghai People's Publishing House, 1999 edition)
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