← Back to Reviews
in
A Short Film About Killing ([Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1988) Art House Rating
This is another film I watched because it was in Harry Lime's Top 100. It's about as sobering a film as anyone can watch. Cinematographer Slawomir Idziak (Three Colors: Blue, Black Hawk Down) used green and brown filters, as well as irises and masking devices to black out certain parts of the image in an effort to produce a dirty, primitive depiction of life on earth. This is a deceptively simple, quasi-realistic film which shows how a teenager (Miroslaw Baka) commits the insane, pointless murder of a taxi driver (Jan Tesarz) and is sentenced by the state (Communist Poland) to death, thus insuring that insane, pointless murders will become an endless cycle. The two murders in the film are framed by the fact that the boy's defense attorney (Krzysztof Globisz) was actually celebrating his passing of the law exam in the same cafe the night the boy was also there just before he committed the murder. The murder and the execution are both handled in a matter-of-fact style which borders on the repulsive and would give pause to anyone who believes that one is somehow justified over the other. Of course, that's the film's point, and I'm about as gung ho an anti-death penalty proponent you can find, and I believe that the Decalogue falls on my side on this question. I'm damn sure that the government of Poland wasn't trying to carry out God's desires when they executed the boy, and you really come to understand what a pathetic, dreary life he has lead when he talks to his defense attorney before the execution. It's a powerful film, but much of the first half-hour doesn't seem to flesh things out other than the fact that 1980s Poland sucks and it sucks hard.
This is another film I watched because it was in Harry Lime's Top 100. It's about as sobering a film as anyone can watch. Cinematographer Slawomir Idziak (Three Colors: Blue, Black Hawk Down) used green and brown filters, as well as irises and masking devices to black out certain parts of the image in an effort to produce a dirty, primitive depiction of life on earth. This is a deceptively simple, quasi-realistic film which shows how a teenager (Miroslaw Baka) commits the insane, pointless murder of a taxi driver (Jan Tesarz) and is sentenced by the state (Communist Poland) to death, thus insuring that insane, pointless murders will become an endless cycle. The two murders in the film are framed by the fact that the boy's defense attorney (Krzysztof Globisz) was actually celebrating his passing of the law exam in the same cafe the night the boy was also there just before he committed the murder. The murder and the execution are both handled in a matter-of-fact style which borders on the repulsive and would give pause to anyone who believes that one is somehow justified over the other. Of course, that's the film's point, and I'm about as gung ho an anti-death penalty proponent you can find, and I believe that the Decalogue falls on my side on this question. I'm damn sure that the government of Poland wasn't trying to carry out God's desires when they executed the boy, and you really come to understand what a pathetic, dreary life he has lead when he talks to his defense attorney before the execution. It's a powerful film, but much of the first half-hour doesn't seem to flesh things out other than the fact that 1980s Poland sucks and it sucks hard.