A Short Film About Killing [1988] [DVD]

A Short Film About Killing is one of Kieslowski's greatest films, an extremely disturbing work & one that was political by default (Kieslowski tending to pursue an existential tract from No End, 1984, onwards). This film famously lead to the suspension of Capital Punishment in Poland for several years- & is a far stronger film dealing with this issue than later American films such as Dead Man Walking, Last Dance & Monster's Ball. Kieslowski & the ex-lawyer co-writer Krzystof Piesiewicz offer up a philosophical film that advances on the revered works of Ingmar Bergman...& you can't help but think of European literature such as Crime & Punishment, The Outsider/The Stranger & Woyzeck. I also thought of Richard Wright's novel Native Son...

The story is simple- a youth (Miroslaw Baka) wonders around a bit, them murders a taxi driver; he is then put through the legal process & the State murders him. That's it...As with Kieslowski's other works, there are moments of beauty- here found in some kids, a drink and a window. We aren't given the rationale for the killing, one of the longest murder scenes in cinematic history (involving strangling & a slab), or any excuses, or any doubt about the youth's guilt. An idealisitic lawyer defends him, but can do nothing to halt the sentence, or the concluding execution. The execution scene is one of the most hardcore experiences, one of immense bleak power, I have seen in cinema- & was famously ripped off by Lars Von Trier for the lightweight Dancer in the Dark (2000). Detail such as a yellow-tray designed to collect the human waste that is emitted when the platform collapses is extremely disturbing...the scene that I found most powerful was the youth's futile tears as he is put into position...

A Short Film About Killing is a potent piece of cinema, one of Kieslowski's greatest films & proof that Kieslowski was one of the great European auteurs. This easily ranks alongside Blind Chance, No End, & the later works made in France, Poland & Switzerland. Kieslowski states the rationale behind this film in Danusia Stok's Kieslowski on Kieslowski (Faber), which summarises for me why this film is important: "This is a story about a young boy who kills a taxi-driver and then the law kills the boy. In fact there's not much more you can say about the film's narrative since we don't know the reason why the boy kills the taxi driver. We know the legal reasons why society kills the boy. But we don't know the human reasons, nor will we ever know them...I think I wanted to make this film precisely because all this takes place in my name, because I'm a member of society, I'm a citizen of this country, Poland, and if someone, in this country, puts a noose around someone else's neck and kicks the stool from under his feet, he's doing it in my name. And I don't wish it. I don't want them to do it. I think this film isn't really about capital punishment but about killing in general. It's wrong no matter why you kill, no matter whom you kill and no matter who does the killing. I think that's the second reason why I wanted to make this film. The third reason is that I wanted to describe the Polish world, a world which is quite terrible & dull, a world where people don't have any pity for each other, a world where they hate each other, a world where they not only don't help but get in each other's way. A world where they repel each other. A world of people living alone..."

It is a film about two killings - the murder to a taxi driver by a young man and the trial and execution of the same young man by the state. There is little editorial, the films simply presents both killings in their full horrific detail. The murder of the taxi driver feels interminable as with no warning or explanation he is strangled and then battered to death with a slab. He execution of the young man is, if anything even more harrowing, as he is dragged kicking, screaming and crying to the noose. As is often the case it is the little things that are the most chilling and leave the longest lasting impact: the tears of the condemned boy, the pan to collect the human waste.

In my opinion Kieslowski was the greatest European filmmaker of the twentieth century and this film is one of his best.