|
Kino proudly makes Krzysztof Kieslowski's (Blue, White, Red) A Short
Film About Killing available for the first time on US home video and DVD. An
expansion of and a departure from Episode V of Kieslowski's famed European
TV series Decalogue (Episode VI was adapted into A Short Film About Love,
also available on Kino DVD), this theatrically released film is a haunting
vision of the brutality of modern life and an ethical puzzle pitting random
coincidence against irresistible fate. A Short Film About Killing employs a
rich arsenal of cinematic imagination to create a persuasive portrait of
savagery and redemption. "It's not only an artistic triumph," said The
Chicago Tribune, "it's a nerve shredder."
Despite occupying three different worlds within a decrepit modern
Warsaw, three strangers unknowingly share a parallel destiny. In the shadows
of a hellish housing project, a misanthropic cabby lavishes scorn on
everyone and everything he sees. On a downtown sidewalk, a young drifter
searches for himself in a shop window reflection while hiding his face from
the police. Inside a privileged academic cloister, a would-be attorney
defends his optimism in an oral bar exam. Through an appalling act of
violence, cabby, drifter and lawyer are united in a shocking spectacle of
wasted life that defies morality, upends empathy and makes martyrs of
monsters.
In A Short Film About Killing, Kieslowski has created a stunning
rust-hued world of hard edged irony and sublime humanity while performing a
detailed autopsy of a decaying society as barbaric as the crimes it abhors.
In fact, Kieslowski's film fed the personal outrage and national debate that
would lead to a repeal of Poland's draconian capital punishment statutes.
|
