> DVD Review

Jean-Luc Godard, one of the most maddening auteurs in film history and a founding member of the French New Wave, made the incredibly influential “Breathless” in the beginning of his career.

It was a playful and beautiful riff on the film noir and gangster film. But as his career progressed, Godard’s work became increasingly cerebral, intertwined in a web of inter-textuality, politics and attempts to revolutionize cinema along with the world.

In addition to a handful of excellent film adaptations, Japanese director Akira Kurosawa and English playwright William Shakespeare have one metatextual artistic trait in common: the paradoxical ability to produce art that is firmly rooted in a native culture but also incredibly universal.

For instance, Kurosawa’s early samurai epics, “The Seven Samurai” (1954) and “Yojimbo” (1961), which are both firmly planted in Japanese culture, became Americanized to great success in “The Magnificent Seven” (1960) and “A Fistful of Dollars” (1964).

Krzysztof Kieslowski’s 10-hour Polish miniseries “The Decalogue” has often been rightfully praised as being one of the best films ever made. The film probably best resembles Ingmar Bergman’s questions of morality intersecting with the aesthetic of Stanley Kubrick or Robert Bresson.

But such comparisons do not even come close to the emotional and artistic zenith that Kieslowski reaches in his massive canvas.