Tu ne tueras point

I am sure this is not the most depressing film ever made, I am sure that somewhere, some time, some one has made a more distressing and emotionally powerful look at humans in all there glory. I'm sure people have endeavoured to make a film that makes a city (in this case Warsaw) look bleaker and darker. And I'm sure that this isn't the most painful spiral downhill voyage any character has ever made on celluloid. I'm also sure that this movie is the darkest movie on every level I have ever seen.

The director uses dark filters at time to make this movie almost black, but all that is does is replicate the feel of the material. Which was essentially an anti capital punishment movie. We follow a young man's trip to the dark side, troubled by an unnamed past this movie is a lot like The Machinist or Requiem for A Dream, we can see this man faltering and we feel helpless. The movie is compelling the same way a car wreck is.

You shouldn't be able to watch a movie this black, from the start with a cat in a terrible position to the end with a human in a terrible position, this is only a film that could have been made in Europe. Humans are painted in a despicable way, but it's the city of Warsaw that looks like it's about to grab you at any moment.

This is a very visual way of telling a story, words are almost not necessary throughout the whole film, except a brilliant conversation between lawyer and client. And another brilliant thing about this movie is there is not a "the capital punishment law is wrong" speech by a lawyer to be seen, the movie tells you what it wants you to know without a lawyer ramming in down your throat.

Subtle is best. And in this case a picture does tell a thousand words.

This is a slow burning painfully beautiful look at killing, and if you can sit through its 80 minutes of bleakness, you may never forget its imagery.

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.

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.

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.

Impressive and thought provoking, this film debates the age-old topic of capital punishment. Here though, there is a difference. The morality of state-killing is critiqued alongside an analysis of individual agency - when a person kills another, apparently from a desire to murder, are there other motives and factors that bring him/her to this position? Are we all, given certain circumstances, capable of killing?

This tantalising and worrying notion has been considered elsewhere, and Camus' 'The Outsider' is a good example. Here, there are many parallels with Kieslowski's film: that a desire to kill - and killing itself - can be driven by a range of factors - some banal, some traumatic, and not all by any means within the control of the protagonist.