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Five: Thou shalt not kill
The main players? Jacek; Piotr, a young lawyer and a taxi driver.
Right off the bat, I'm not suggesting getting litigious or taking the law into our own hands, but the cinematographer who is responsible this, certainly deserves, at least 50 lashes with a wet noodle. Ugh! The filters are horrible.
Kieslowski develops here a nice visual motif of emotional distance registered through windows. Jacek is always looking into or seen through a window or a pane of glass, suggesting his alienation. The time line is also interesting. The story takes place the day of an execution, although the bulk of the story happens a year earlier. Also the story opens with Piotr is being asked for a third time: what is justice? Now he's not so sure, which suggests time-wise that this is the last scene in the story.
The priesthood is subtly evoked. After the sentence Piotr meets with the Judge in chambers and asks if there was anything else he could have done. The judge tells him he was faultless, flawless, and gives him total absolution. Instead, he'll take that great responsibility of the law onto his own shoulders---though to be honest---he doesn't look like he's going to lose much sleep over it. The lawyer also hears Jacek's the last confession, where we learn a little something of his personal drama. Jacek reveals his best friend accidentally killed his little sister while they were on a drunken bender together. His father passed away from a broken heart, not long after. Which explains the children. At first they seem to be the only thing that rouses him briefly from his sullen stupor, although as the story progresses he seems to be actively haunted and even pursued by these images of innocence which suggests unbearable guilt. And perhaps even a physiological need to be punished? Kilvinski appears first as a road surveyor holding up traffic, he seems to warn Jacek off with a shake of his head. Then later reappears unnoticed as a handy man tooling around the prison.
The taxi driver's fate appears to be preordained; yet as we follow him, we notice every moment contained another a choice that would have spun him around in a different direction and removed him from danger. Which is an interesting observation. Looking forward, your life always appear to be a logical progression from point A to point Z. You got from there to here in one straight line. Whereas in fact, if you look backwards, the diagram of your life would resembles a craggy lighting strike from grave to cradle. The proverbial fork in the road doesn't exist, it's a branch of infinite choice. You could quit your job tomorrow, move to the south of Spain and take up ... roller derby. Each and every waking moment is filled with a multitude choices.
Of course, the sordidness of Jacek's crime, is surpassed only by the unyielding thuggery of the state. The similarities between the two are unbearable. For the taxi driver; the man on the bicycle could have stopped and shouted Jacek off. Or the way the engineer in the passing train mistakes his desperation as a casual greeting. A single bystander would have saved his life. For Jacek, all the witnesses gather to watch him die. Their preparation rituals seem to eerily match; they even smoke the same brand of unfiltered cigarettes. The offal tray the executioner places beneath the gallows to catch his leakage, making after execution clean-up a breeze reveals he's a skilled serial killer, unlike Jacek.
There's also a third fatality in the story; Piotr's idealism. Having discovered with his very first case that justice is just a delusion for the masses; the idea he's going to use the law to ennoble society is a crock. He's going to sit next to the conveyor belt of crime and punishment, for the next 20 or 30 years of his life, picking out a case here and there, watching the weak and defenseless, pilloried and dispatched as examples of social control.
The main players? Jacek; Piotr, a young lawyer and a taxi driver.
Right off the bat, I'm not suggesting getting litigious or taking the law into our own hands, but the cinematographer who is responsible this, certainly deserves, at least 50 lashes with a wet noodle. Ugh! The filters are horrible.
Kieslowski develops here a nice visual motif of emotional distance registered through windows. Jacek is always looking into or seen through a window or a pane of glass, suggesting his alienation. The time line is also interesting. The story takes place the day of an execution, although the bulk of the story happens a year earlier. Also the story opens with Piotr is being asked for a third time: what is justice? Now he's not so sure, which suggests time-wise that this is the last scene in the story.
The priesthood is subtly evoked. After the sentence Piotr meets with the Judge in chambers and asks if there was anything else he could have done. The judge tells him he was faultless, flawless, and gives him total absolution. Instead, he'll take that great responsibility of the law onto his own shoulders---though to be honest---he doesn't look like he's going to lose much sleep over it. The lawyer also hears Jacek's the last confession, where we learn a little something of his personal drama. Jacek reveals his best friend accidentally killed his little sister while they were on a drunken bender together. His father passed away from a broken heart, not long after. Which explains the children. At first they seem to be the only thing that rouses him briefly from his sullen stupor, although as the story progresses he seems to be actively haunted and even pursued by these images of innocence which suggests unbearable guilt. And perhaps even a physiological need to be punished? Kilvinski appears first as a road surveyor holding up traffic, he seems to warn Jacek off with a shake of his head. Then later reappears unnoticed as a handy man tooling around the prison.
The taxi driver's fate appears to be preordained; yet as we follow him, we notice every moment contained another a choice that would have spun him around in a different direction and removed him from danger. Which is an interesting observation. Looking forward, your life always appear to be a logical progression from point A to point Z. You got from there to here in one straight line. Whereas in fact, if you look backwards, the diagram of your life would resembles a craggy lighting strike from grave to cradle. The proverbial fork in the road doesn't exist, it's a branch of infinite choice. You could quit your job tomorrow, move to the south of Spain and take up ... roller derby. Each and every waking moment is filled with a multitude choices.
Of course, the sordidness of Jacek's crime, is surpassed only by the unyielding thuggery of the state. The similarities between the two are unbearable. For the taxi driver; the man on the bicycle could have stopped and shouted Jacek off. Or the way the engineer in the passing train mistakes his desperation as a casual greeting. A single bystander would have saved his life. For Jacek, all the witnesses gather to watch him die. Their preparation rituals seem to eerily match; they even smoke the same brand of unfiltered cigarettes. The offal tray the executioner places beneath the gallows to catch his leakage, making after execution clean-up a breeze reveals he's a skilled serial killer, unlike Jacek.
There's also a third fatality in the story; Piotr's idealism. Having discovered with his very first case that justice is just a delusion for the masses; the idea he's going to use the law to ennoble society is a crock. He's going to sit next to the conveyor belt of crime and punishment, for the next 20 or 30 years of his life, picking out a case here and there, watching the weak and defenseless, pilloried and dispatched as examples of social control.