Cinema of the World

(Noel Megahey, DVD Times)

A Short Film About Killing started out as the fifth episode of Dekalog (Decalogue/The Ten Commandments), a series of ten short films co-written and directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski for Polish television in 1988. Dekalog 5: Thou Shalt Not Kill when expanded to a feature length film as A Short Film About Killing, loses none of its power and remains one of the most important and intensely powerful episodes from a cycle of films that dealt with many complex issues affecting our daily lives.

Right down to its simple, concise title, A Short Film About Killing clearly sums up its intentions. A young man, Jacek (Miroslaw Baka) brutally murders a taxi driver (Jan Tesarz) apparently at random for no comprehensible reason. A young, novice lawyer, Poitr (Krzysztof Globisz) is assigned to his case, but despite his best efforts his client is sentenced to the death penalty causing him concern at his own abilities as a lawyer and the nature of the legal system. The director's background in documentary film-making provides a sound basis for the intellectual vigor and honesty in his examination and presentation of the subject, covering all aspects of the subject from every relevant angle with dispassionate objectivity.

In this film particularly, as much as in any of the director's other films, Kieslowski demonstrates a perfectly assured and measured control over every single element of his craft. Nothing is left to chance or to accident - the director knows precisely the effect each scene will have on the viewer and uses it to maximum effect. The concrete drabness of the Warsaw apartment block, the coldness of winter, the dull palette of colour, the dark filters on the camera shots, the gloomy score by Zbigniew Preisner - all contribute to dreadful, portentous and hugely oppressive atmosphere of the film. Even the length of each particular scene is carefully weighed and balanced for precise effect. It is said that the murder scene is the longest killing on film, but whether this is true or not, the effect is obvious, calculated and effective. The director spares us nothing, drawing out the full horrible senselessness of the act, showing enough to horrify but so much as to be salacious. When it comes to the execution scene, also shown in its full and frank brutality, the act of killing by an individual is perfectly balanced against the killing by the state. Divested of any glamour or meaning, neither killing makes any sense.

The measure of Kieslowski's genius is that he manages to make this all look so easy. He manages to clearly and concisely put across a complex and emotive subject within the short 81 minute time span of the film, skillfully using only the elements necessary and discarding anything superfluous. There is no place here for preaching or moralising. The director examines the subject from an ethical viewpoint, the moralisation comes from the individual viewer. Even when it comes to the courtroom scene, Kieslowski has the chance to grandstand and deliver from the mouth of the defence lawyer a powerful and moving speech against capital punishment, but the director shows tremendous restraint. "Your speech was, I think, the best case against capital punishment I have heard in many years", the judge tells Poitr, the defence lawyer, but the actual speech is never heard in the film. It is enough for the director, with the skills and ability he has, to show without a trace of condescension or preaching, the stark, grim brutality of murder, whether by an individual or the state and leave those eternal and universal questions - what drives someone to kill and is it ever right to kill - to be answered by others.

The film is not just a treatise on death, killing and capital punishment - the film is even more complex than that and operates, over its short length, on many other levels. In the film Kieslowski also explores themes of randomness, chance and how the actions of others and the small events of fate can direct our lives. These themes, already apparent in earlier work like Blind Chance and the Dekalog series, would also be developed further in The Three Colours Trilogy, particularly Three Colours Red. But perhaps the greatest legacy of the film lies in it being a catalyst to effecting genuine social change. The film's grim and powerful message was instrumental in influencing public opinion and may have contributed in part to the abolition of the death penalty in Poland. There are not many films as important or socially relevant as that.









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