A Short Film About Killing (1988)
"Krótki film o zabijaniu" (original title)

The plot couldn't be simpler or its attack on capital punishment (and the act of killing in general) more direct - a senseless, violent, almost botched murder is followed by a cold, ... See full summary »

Director:

Krzysztof Kieslowski

Writers:

Krzysztof Kieslowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz

Stars:

Miroslaw Baka, Krzysztof Globisz, Jan Tesarz

7 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Credited cast:
Miroslaw Baka	...	Jacek Lazar
Krzysztof Globisz	...	Piotr Balicki (Advocate)
Jan Tesarz	...	Waldemar Rekowski (Taxi driver)
Zbigniew Zapasiewicz	...	Przewodniczacy Komisji
Barbara Dziekan	...	Bileterka
Aleksander Bednarz	...	Kat
Jerzy Zass	...	Naczelnik
Zdzislaw Tobiasz	...	Judge
Artur Barcis	...	Young Man
Krystyna Janda	...	Dorota
Olgierd Lukaszewicz	...	Andrzej
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Leonard Andrzejewski
Wieslaw Bednarz
Zbigniew Borek
Ryszard W. Borsucki

Storyline

The plot couldn't be simpler or its attack on capital punishment (and the act of killing in general) more direct - a senseless, violent, almost botched murder is followed by a cold, calculated, flawlessly performed execution (both killings shown in the most graphic detail imaginable), while the murderer's idealistic young defence lawyer ends up as an unwilling accessory to the judicial murder of his client.

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Plot Keywords:

murder | murderer | lawyer | capital punishment | execution | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Poland

Language:

Polish

Release Date:

26 October 1988 (France)

Also Known As:

No matarás

Filming Locations:

Krakowskie Przedmiescie, Sródmiescie, Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland

Company Credits

Production Co:

Zespol Filmowy "Tor"

Technical Specs

Runtime:

84 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The quote mentioned by Piotr during his final examination, "...since Cain the world has neither been intimidated nor ameliorated by punishment ...", is from Karl Marx (explaining why the examiners know the source), published on January 28, 1853.

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Quotes

Jacek Lazar: I didn't listen in court, not until you called to me. They were all... all against me.
Piotr Balicki: Against what you did.
Jacek Lazar: Same thing...

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Connections

Featured in Pirated Copy (2004)

User Reviews

Three killings and one derailment

Twenty-year-old Jacek is roaming about in the grey dreariness of the Warsaw City Center. The only impulse that drives him is destructiveness, but his actions are aimless and accidental: He finds a stone on a bridge, pushes it forward so that it falls down and smashes the windscreen of one of the passing cars. He shoves a posh-looking young man into a urinal without any word of explanation. And he pulls out of his pocket that long cord and keeps fiddling around with it, until he finally commits the murder he planned: the senseless killing of a cab driver completely unknown to him, a man who just had the bad luck of taking him and not one of the other passengers who were waiting at the taxi rank.

Explanations will only follow very much later, after Jacek is sentenced to be hanged. But even in the first part of the movie the audience may find some hints which make them stop short in their condemnation of Jacek's actions. There is, for instance, the scene in the photographic shop, when he takes out an old and slightly damaged first Communion photo of a little girl and asks for an enlargement. Can you tell from a picture if a person that is on it is still alive? Such a question seems abnormal to the shop assistant. But only a little while later Jacek proves that he is perfectly capable of normal human reactions, when he merrily starts visual contact with two little girls he can see from a cafeteria.

However, we also notice the spatial distance produced by the thick window pane of the cafeteria, in which lonely Jacek consumes his piece of cake. A direct communication does no longer seem possible. He became estranged from the human beings that surround him when an awful thing happened in his life, five years ago, a fatal incident that he finally reveals to his defence counsel, just a few moments before his execution: After a booze-up he went inside a tractor, driven by a pal; there was that little girl right at the side of the road, Jacek's twelve-year-old sister; the pal failed to see her and knocked her down.

Jacek never got over this senselessly caused death of a beloved sister, and therefore this accident may be seen as the origin of Jacek's embitterment. Like a train that is derailed by an unexpected obstacle, Jacek's life got thrown off the track. The equally senseless death of the cab driver is just a logical consequence resulting from the preceding accident. And the causal chain reaction does even go further. For Jacek's death by hanging in the end is nothing more than a consistent continuation of a disastrous move of fate committed at some point of the past.