Three different men have three very different places in the same city, Warsaw, Poland. Waldemar is a middle-aged cab driver. The film introduces us to him as he declines a fare (he's not quite ready for one at the time) and here's where we see the one moment in the film that could have changed his life. Instead of driving the nice young couple that wants a ride, he waits. Jacek is a young man who we find wandering the streets after finding that the movie theater he was planning to go to was closed. He seems nonchalant about what he sees as he walks the street. Piotr is a recent graduate from law school full of ideals and morals and faith in the system. When, in a shocking and brutal moment of random violence Jacek kills Waldemar, Piotr is assigned to act as his defense when it comes to trial.

A Short Film About Killing is also known as Thou Shalt Not Kill and was one of two chapters from Kieslowski's Dekalog (a series of ten one hour films for Polish TV – each one based on one of the Ten Commandments) that was fleshed out to feature length (the other being A Short Film About Love. It's an extremely potent and powerful film that presents violence and death in an unflinching and non-romanticized way. Death in this film is as it should be – ugly and cold and scary.

The film makes an interesting statement about the death penalty and, with its opening and closing scenes, seems to be pointing out how futile combating crime with what is essentially a state sanctioned act of the same magnitude can be. Whether or not you agree with the political slant that the film has is essentially irrelevant though, as the story is simply tense and engrossing from start to finish, despite its deliberate pacing.

The closest point of comparison I could come up with while watching it was Gasper Noe's Irreversible. Both films highlight the fragility of life and how things can so easily spiral out of control and go horribly wrong in such a small amount of time. Where Irreversible hits you over the head with two scenes of abhorrent and shocking violence, A Short Film About Killing holds your head in place and makes you pay attention in a slightly less exploitative but equally effective way.

Video:

Just like their release of A Short Film About Love Kino have done a very nice job on their anamorphic widescreen transfer. Colors are slightly softer here than on the other film but it's minor in comparison to just how good it all looks. The film's prolific use of strange lighting really comes through in high detail and there is only a slight hint of print damage here and there.