A young unemployed man Lazar Jacek with a sad childhood drifts aimlessly about Warsaw. He hires a taxi and murders the cab-driver. He pays for the crime with his life. The atmosphere and mood of this sombre film is established early. Is the strange colouring of the film intentional? The uneven lighting of the screen is unusual, the photographic images almost over-exposed in the centre of the screen while the edges of the screen are dark, shadowy and without much colour. At times the images with a preponderance of yellow suggest pastel drawings. The action is slow and ominous giving a feeling that something is about to happen. This tends to rivet the viewer tense in his seat. What follows is abhorrent to the eye - the cruel bashing of a man to a slow and painful death. Kieslowski likes to give us the detail. He spares nothing. The attempts of the battered victim to attract passers-by is horribly exciting. Jacek's acquisition of the taxi is short-lived. He is soon in jail. The defence lawyer recently graduated and uncertain about his own future makes an unsuccessful attempt to save the young man from the gallows. A lot of this story we have seen before but not with such detailed violence. The final scene when the lawyer visits the condemned man is probably the most moving. The preparation of the noose, the oiling of the device, the placing of the tray below the trap-door hold one rapt in disgust. The message is clear: "Thou shalt not kill!!" But thinking about it we wonder how this young life might have been saved if help had been given in his early years. It seems it all started with his little sister - killed in a tractor accident on the farm when she was only twelve.
Review of A Short Film About Killing
