WHY `DECALOGUE' WAS MADE

Many of the people who attended last month's Denver International Film Festival saw the entire ``Decalogue'' cycle, despite tantalizing attractions screened at the same time. Everyone wanted to know what had prompted director Krsysztof Kieslowski, who claims not to be religious, to take up the Mosaic Laws. But he resisted describing his motivations until all 10 films had been screened. Then in an interview he commented, ``Americans say this: If something is well written it should be filmed.'' Twinkling visibly, he added, ``And the Ten Commandments are 10 well-written rules never filmed before.''

More seriously, he went on, ``It is very interesting. For 6,000 years these rules have been unquestionably right. And yet we break them every day. We know what we should do, and yet we fail to live as we should.''

He acknowledged that we live in a time when ethical ethical and spiritual values often take a back seat to other concerns. ``People feel that something is wrong in life. There is some kind of atmosphere that makes people turn now to other values. They want to contemplate the basic questions of life, and that is probably the real reason for wanting to tell these stories.''