A Short Film About Killing
November 1st 2007 23:18
The young man idly eats a doughnut and spits in his coffee at a café not far from where the lawyer sits with his lover discussing his future, then moments later the drifter hails the taxi and tells the cabbie to take him to a remote area near a lake on the city’s outskirts.
Miroslaw Baka as the drifter
The lawyer (Krsysztof Globisz) and his girlfriend in the cafe
The killer and the cabbie (Jan Tesarz)
The man convulses, involuntarily defecates into the pit, and is pronounced dead, as the lawyer watches in quiet horror.
Beside his car, somewhere far away from the long arm of the legal system, the lawyer weeps.
The lawyer and his case
Two of the episodes were expanded into 80-minute features; A Short Film About Love ("Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery") and A Short Film About Killing ("Thou Shalt Not Kill").
A Short film About Killing (1987) examines the senseless inhumanity man inflicts upon his own kind and the inherent hypocrisy with capital punishment. The film is a study of opposites that are inexorably entwined: murder and execution. It is the cause and effect of the crime and the punishment, death that is delivered through rage and death that is delivered as justice. It is the hopelessness of a system that sees itself as a means to an end, and yet ultimately achieves very little.
The lawyer visits the convicted as he awaits his fate
The killer is allowed the final token small pleasure
Using the magician of light, cinematographer Slawomir Idziak (The Double Life of Veronique and Blue), Krzysztof has made a powerful indictment on modern society, the cruelty and the cowardice, the order and the justice. Brilliantly and effortlessly he tells this spare tale predominantly without dialogue. The lighting is stylised, with frequent use of filters, cleverly isolating the killer. The haunting score is by Zbigniew Preisner (who also composed the equally haunting music for Double Life of Veronique and the Three Colours trilogy).
A Short Film About Killing is pure poetry, and one of several masterstrokes from this masterful cinematic artist. Dark and unforgiving, it paints a picture of despair with such beauty you can’t help but feel your conscience quietly devastated.
Here is the last harrowing segment detailing the execution. It is taken from the original Decalogue version which ends with the lawyer angrily denouncing the legal system ("I abhor it! I abhor it!"), rather than simply crying in exasperation, as he does in the extended movie version.
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
This is one of those films I was lucky enough to stumble upon by accident on World Movies and it really knocked me about.
A profound film that is essential viewing, brilliantly shot and edited into an unforgettable experience. Powerful in its execution.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Cheers for the props fellow cine champion.
Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
The crime was terrible and random but the execution was methodically systematic and ruthless.
It showed a ceremony of execution was like a warped Right of Passage for the Legal System. The decision was made and failing a legal loophole there was no escape.
Even the defense lawer was told that despite the wonderful rebuff to the death penalty he had written there was nothing that would stop the machine that had reject his arguments before he stated them.
Excellent film from an excellent director.
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by Sheree
Cliche Murder
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Cheers for stopping by.