A short film about killing

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Movie
German title A short film about killing
Original title Krótki film o zabijaniu
Country of production Poland / FRG
original language Polish
Publishing year 1988
length 84, TV version 55 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Krzysztof Kieślowski
script Krzysztof Kieślowski
Krzysztof Piesiewicz
production Ryszard Chutkowski
music Zbigniew Preisner
camera Sławomir Idziak
cut Ewa Smal
occupation

A short film about killing (original title: Krótki film o zabijaniu ) is a film by the Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski from 1988. The film is the fifth part of the ten-part Decalogue in an abridged television version . There he represents the fifth of the Ten Commandments of the Bible , "You shall not kill". Kieślowski wrote the script together with his long-time co-writer Krzysztof Piesiewicz . All ten films were broadcast in October 1994 on the Franco-German TV channel ARTE . The film was first broadcast on German television on June 1, 1990. The cinema release in Germany was on January 26, 1989.

action

The film initially follows three people through the city: a taxi driver, a newly qualified lawyer and a young man who drifts aimlessly. You move in a rather dreary world between the prefabricated building and Warsaw's old town. The taxi driver is characterized by being unfriendly to his fellow men, the young man does not behave much better than he drops a stone from a bridge onto a passing car. Only the lawyer spreads some confidence.

Their paths cross. The lawyer celebrates passing his exam in a café, and the young man leaves the same café shortly afterwards with a tight string in his hand. He gets in at the misanthropic taxi driver in front of the door and lets himself be driven into a remote area.

There he laboriously kills the taxi driver with the help of a string and a stone. The killing for no reason takes a long time, as the victim fights back violently, but in the end it is defeated. The young man takes the taxi and drives back to town. But the car is recognized.

The film plot is at the end of the trial of the young man again: he was for his crime to death by train convicted. Here you meet the lawyer again. He is humanistic and doubts the meaning of the death penalty, but he does not succeed in saving his client from death. He talks for a long time to the young man, who is only now increasingly confiding in him and at the same time appears desperate and fearful.

The preparations for the killing of the man are accompanied, the inspection of the tiny executioner's room, the examination of the mechanisms, the rope, the trapdoor underneath. The condemned young man's life is just as stolen from him as he previously took it from his victim, and again the killing is laborious, undignified and only with resistance from the condemned. This is underlined by cinematic details such as the doctor beginning to fill in the death certificate before it has even been brought to the execution chamber, i.e. while he is still alive, as if he wanted to get the routine over with quickly. The final blessing from a priest happens quickly without a word being said. When the convict bows to him in search of consolation, he only touches the back of his head briefly and then quickly pulls his hand away, trying to reduce contact with the convict to a minimum. When the convict is offered a cigarette, he says that he would prefer one without a filter. The executioner then lights a cigarette, blows the smoke (intentionally or not) in the face of the condemned person and puts it in his mouth. After a few puffs, the ashtray is held up to him and he has to put out the cigarette. He makes an attempt to tear himself away. He is quickly handcuffed, blindfolded, and the execution chamber curtain is torn aside. The officers put him on the trapdoor, the hangman puts the noose around his neck and, according to instructions, calls his helper to wind the rope up until the length is correct, which he acknowledges with a "dość" (enough). Then he triggers the mechanism, after a few seconds the convict's hands go limp, the doctor silently declares his death with the stethoscope and the procedure is over. There follows a final shot that shows the lawyer outside in his desperation.

background

A short film about killing is the theatrical version of Decalogue, Five , one of ten short films in the Decalogue by Krzysztof Kieślowski, a cycle that deals with the Ten Commandments . It is a television production that was broadcast simultaneously on Polish and German television in 1989, in Germany on the Free Berlin channel . Two films in the series, the Decalogue mentioned here , five and A Short Film About Love ( Decalogue, Six ) were each shown in a long version in the cinema (Poland: 57 min / USA: 59 min / Argentina: 60 min). Kieślowski worked with a different cameraman on each of the films, here it was Sławomir Idziak .

When the film aired in 1988, the death penalty was still practiced in Poland. However, in the same year a convict was last executed, and in 1997 the death penalty was abolished.

Film analysis

The killing scenes stand out from the rest of the film. Their naturalistic representation contrasts with the artificiality and arrangement of the rest of the film, which is also emphasized by faded-in, abstract reflections on the nature of law itself. The killing of the taxi driver in particular is excruciatingly drawn out and capable of causing horror in the audience at what people are capable of doing to one another.

The two killings, the legal and the illegal, are similar; in both cases Kieślowski documents the effort it takes to take a life, the circumstances surrounding it, the preparation and appeasement of the victim before the act. Also the legal punishment for him A murderer can only be carried out by force, and the murderer is fighting for his life as much as his victim was before. The film is therefore seen by critics as a passionate plea against the death penalty. In an interview, however, Kieślowski denied that he had explicitly sought this reading: “No, I never said that the film was a plea or that it should be against the death penalty, no, it is a film against killing. "

What is striking about the film is the barreness and dreariness of the places shown, which is reinforced by a green filter. The original reason for using this filter was not an artistic stylistic device, as cameraman Sławomir Idziak himself described it in an interview, but part of a condition. Kieślowski wanted Idziak as a cameraman. Although he was not interested, he could not refuse a director like Kieslowski for no reason. Since fixed wage rates prevailed in what was then Poland and a frighteningly exorbitant fee demand was out of the question, Idziak had to make other demands. In order to make an unacceptable requirement, he made the use of a green filter a condition. Against all odds, Kieslowski agreed and the film was shot in green. The reason why Kieślowski accepted this was, as he revealed in an interview the following: The film is in abbreviated form also part of the ten-part film cycle Decalogue and Kieslowski wanted to have a different cinematographer for each of its ten Decalogue parts to break the monotony avoiding a television series that would have resulted if only one cameraman had been used for all parts. So the choice fell on number five of the Decalogue, i.e. H. for a short film about killing , with Idziak as cameraman. Kieślowski allowed the cameramen full freedom here and deliberately did not intervene, but was happy to be surprised by their creativity, such as the use of the green filter here. Piesiewicz, who often had to deal with murder cases due to his legal experience, commented that the green filter was an excellent match for the film, as it resembled the often yellowish and greenish photos of the criminal police and additionally emphasized the dirt and brutality of the criminal reality. Compared to reality, the film is still quite mild in its form of expression, according to Piesiewicz.

Reviews

The film is not easy fare, says Barbara Schweizerhof in her review in Der Filmkanon . He has the aura of a duty; you know that you should have seen him. In the end, however, she says that Kieślowski “deals with the act of killing itself. He does this with impressive consistency. And it is this seriousness that initially puts you off on the outside. But anyone who overcomes the defensive reflex is promised at this point: It's worth it. " The lexicon of the international film confirms the enormous impact that the film can develop: " The film confronts the viewer with frightening images, the one with relentless directness require further discussion, but this illustrates his unconditional appeal for human dignity and life. "

Awards

The film was awarded the first ever European Film Prize in 1988 and received the jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1988 . A short film about killing is one of 35 films that the Federal Agency for Civic Education, in cooperation with numerous filmmakers, included in a film canon for work in schools in 2003.

European Film Award 1988

Cannes International Film Festival 1988

Polish Film Festival Gdynia 1988

  • Golden lion

Bodil 1990

  • Best European film

Syndicat Français de la Critique de Cinéma 1990

Robert Festival 1990

  • Best foreign language film

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/international/polen-stoesst-debatte-ueber-todesstrafe-wieder-an/v_default,736994.html
  2. ↑ cf. Reclam classic film , Stuttgart 1998, p. 306f.
  3. ↑ a b cf. Alfred Holighaus (ed.): The film canon. 35 films you need to know . Berlin 2005, p. 235 ff . , Review by Barbara Schweizerhof
  4. ↑ Kieślowski in an interview with the Polish TV show 100 questions to ... , cf. Archiwum (Polish DVD edition) and Kieslowski Meets the Press (US version) in the special edition complete set of the film
  5. ↑ a b Idziak describes this fact in detail in the episode Tales of Love and Death. Portrait of the Polish film director Krzysztof Kieslowski of the series “ Keyword Kino” (ZDF / 3sat, 1995)