Krótki film o zabijaniu

Although this movie concerns itself with one of the paramount taboos, its evocative intensity is kept quite impassive. Perhaps the intention is to allow the viewer the freedom of choice: to either accept consciously, the facts of life, with all its "red in tooth and claw" aspects, {a form of realism}, or to resist the blind, impulsive irrationality of sado- masochistic gratification with all its pathological undertones.

Kieslowski divides his tale into three main parts - the first part introduces the three main characters - the candidate advocate who is being examined by the Board for his Bar entrance - we are introduced to a man of a sensitive nature, thoughtful and unconvinced after four years of practice that punishment is a deterrent {although he concedes that it might be a deterrent ,or at least intimidatory to those for whom crime is not a natural calling}. He offers a reference from Genesis stating that the threat of punishment did not deter Cain from murdering Abel. The next character is a youth who walks aimlessly looking at cinema posters, amusing himself in rebellious and anti-social ways. The third character is a taxi driver who is seen cleaning and shining his car. Kieslowski has given him a rather disagreeable personality.

The second part of the movie has the three main characters slowly and inexorably moving towards each other so that the precise details of their intertwined destinies can be unfolded. The advocate is seen with his wife in the same coffee house as the punkish youth. The youth then randomly selects a taxi to drive him to a desolate country road where in a slowly enacted, drawn out scene, he garottes and bludgeons the taxi driver, who begs for mercy on behalf of his wife and children. The viewer is left in no doubt as to the horror of the act as the youth raises a large stone and smashes the victims head with it.

The movie then experiences a jump cut in editing as the capture and trial of the murderer are omitted and the thread of the story continues with the youth being found guilty. This causes the advocate to go through a soul searching period of whether his defence of the youth was competent. Kieslowski, finally allows the viewer biographical access to the life of the youth/murderer - this is the only part of the movie driven by emotional values as we learn of the tragedies in his life and his need to be reassured that at least in death he would be buried close to his father and sister whom he both obviously loved. This is a brilliant preparatory moment as the viewer is made conscious of this up -to-now abstract figure, who up to this point had elicited no sympathy at all. Now the viewer is jolted into consciousness as the humanity of the murderer transforms him back into a human being.

The third part of the movie - the final curtain, is the carrying out of the death penalty.Unlike Hollywood, where as in "Dead Man Walking", Sean Penn is shown walking to his doom still embracing his pride - Kieslowski depicts the taking of life, first, with the murder of the taxi driver in a long protracted scene, and then with the Judicial murder, a heart wrenching display of fear and struggle leaving the viewer feeling personally assaulted and gut-wrenched {at least that's how I felt}.

Only a master of the practice of art could have pulled this off. When one thinks of what to reference this movie to, other movies don't come to mind. Rather one has to look at literature {as I'm sure Kieslowski did}. Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" and Musil's "The Man Without Qualities" spring to mind. I take the fact that this movie is to be compared with major works of literary art to be high praise indeed

If you want more than pulp movies then this philosophical discourse on the nature of life and death will leave you somehow enhanced and certainly more aware. Highly recommended.

Have you ever just want to lash out at somebody because emotions have been building up inside you for so long? This is what A Short Film About Killing is about. Perfectly executed and realistically pictured. The pacing is phenomenal, the excitement building up to every scene is breath taking and the way the film portrays youth, adults and the sad depravity of humanity is outstanding.

Beyond words, A Short Film About Killing is undoubtedly one of the best films I've seen. Though the subtitles, for English and non-Polish viewers, mildly take away from the metaphoric scenes, this film is beyond fantastic. Very much worthy of all the praise and love that this great film has received.

A Short Film About Killing is Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski's feature length adaptation of the hour long piece belonging to the Dekalog series, a collection of modern representations of the ten commandments set in a socio-realist Warsaw in Poland. This film, 'thou shalt not kill', is a film essentially about two separate 'murders'. Jacek, a young adolescent, kills an innocent taxi driver in a seemingly motiveless crime for which he is tried and executed at the hands of the state.

Inherently simple in terms of its plot, A Short Film About Killing is a complex indictment on all forms of killing, whether in the form of an act of brutal murder, or an organised and legal murder wrapped in the arms of the law. Kieslowski, clearly inspired by the human-issues documentary movement in the 70's, has presented the film as a bleak and depressing reality. Filmed on location, the run down post-cold war communist Warsaw in Poland provides a cold and melancholic back drop to the film. The documentary feel of the film is intensified by the way it is filmed, with no tracking or dolly shots, just an observing camera placing us, the undiscerning viewer right in the thick of it. This can make the affect of the scenes in the film somewhat sickening at times, however it was clearly intended by Kieslowski, who wanted to show how disgusting murder is. The subtle green filter used on the camera, gives the celluloid a dreary appearance, pertaining to the bleak mood of the film. This minimalistic photography allows us to focus on the detailed reactions and actions of the characters in the film, which come to a horrifying climax during both murder sequences, probably two of the most superbly executed murder sequences ever committed to film.

Kieslowski doesn't try to explain Jacek's murder because he clearly wants to avoid condoning it with motives that might make the audience feel sorry for him. Instead, Kieslowski simply presents Jacek's execution as a counterpoint to the murder of the taxi driver, thus forcing us to compare the the horrific nature of both acts, revealing the crux of the film. The first murder in the back of the taxi is with out a doubt horrific, but the execution is just as unforgivable, illustrating that although legal, capital punishment is devoid of humanity and veracity, in all the same ways as cold blooded murder itself. It is a brilliant illustration of the failings and contradictory nature of capital punishment, which replicate the actions of a murderer instead of upholding justice.

It was clearly the intention of Kieslowski to underline this in his film. He believed, like many others, that capital punishment has no place in the 20th century. I wouldn't be surprised if many who start this film as pro capital punishment, end up strongly against it by the time the credits roll. If this sounds too presumptuous, then consider the fact that A Short Film About Killing led to the suspension of capital Punishment in Poland. This surely proves the power of the film.

The bleakest, most powerful of Kieslowski's Dekalog series opens with half the screen black, and the other half full of a cat hanged by the neck from a street railing. Children scamper off in the background, laughing. The words of the title appear over the black. Bam. We're in. And we're not allowed out of this bleak, miserable world until the end credits. We must crawl through a world where humour is exiled and bitterness and cynicism reign, with our eyes fitted with lenses hand-painted by the director, turning Warsaw into a jaded defeated landscape of dirty sepias and dishwater greys. The story is simple; a young man kills a taxi driver and is, in turn, killed by the state. Just as the title says. There is no humour, no light relief. It's awful, somehow beautiful, constantly disturbing. It's dirty and tawdry. While cinema barrages us daily with glib murders by the bucketful, Kieslowski gives us just two, and shows us killing for what it is: a bare foot emerging from a shoe & sock as a dying man writhes; blood and urine dribbling into a plastic tray under the gallows. A film which haunts.

Kieslowski did something essential, important; he invented something delicate in vision. It is a way of placing self so that the world appears to us as abstract but real. But rich, not simple. Textured, in such a way that the textures are in the environment, rather than objects in the environment.

This is so obvious a place to be that we forget that it was invented, not discovered. Though almost no one else achieves this balance in art, ever, it has become already something we find naturally in ourselves.

The way he achieved this was to divide his creative self, I believe. One part, he kept to himself and used in the ordinary way we do, stumbling into insightful pleasure. The other part he gave to his creative partner and lover and completely bonded the two. In practical terms, his partner created the situations and ordinary narrative shape. Dialogue.

Kieslowski was then free to shape the cinematic environment. In an ambitious project, he worked with what we call short form in ten related small films made for TeeVee. These are amazingly rich, experimental, successful. They are where he found and gave us that balance between outside and inside: observation and intimacy, narrative fold that vanishes.

But at the same time, he knew they were only sketches of what could be. He needed to take that careful balance into the long form. Now this is a major challenge, because all of a sudden the narrative becomes a spine, not a melody. It becomes the path in the environment. The environment in his carefully conceived balance now has to be dynamic. He did later achieve this in "Three Colors," one of the most important adventures in cinema.

The way he got there was by taking two of the ten decalogue films and making them long form projects. He did not do this — as is generally believed — by simply adding footage to make a short film longer. He completely reimagined the thing from scratch. It is, in fact wholly different, though all the bits of the small project are in it, they are now part of a flow. Though the thing is longer, there are many more mysteries, more story not exposed but placed in the space alone. There is a hint of multiple observation.

There is meaning now, in the car door that mysteriously closes as we see the killer dragging the body to the water.

We owe this man, this project, this killer a lot.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.