In 1980s Warsaw, Tomek, a nineteen-year-old post-office worker, rents a flat. In the evenings, he peeps through a telescope at Magda, a thirty-year-old woman who lives across the street. He tries to get closer to her and finally tells her that he loves her. Magda invites him over only to make it brutally clear that there is no love – only sex.
The theatrical version of The Decalogue VI is a commentary on the sixth commandment: ‘You shall not commit adultery’. Here, adultery does not take the traditional form of betrayal but is interpreted as depriving someone of their intimacy. Both Tomek and Magda commit this sin, driven not by ill will but by emptiness and loneliness. Though this does not absolve the protagonists, it still offers hope for their spiritual transformation.