THE DECALOGUE

A Short Film About Killing

"Krótki film o zabijaniu" (1988)

Krzysztof Kieślowski’s feature-length expansion of *The Decalogue V* is more than a film; it is a clinical, harrowing indictment of the death penalty. It explores the intersection of individual crime and state-sanctioned violence through two parallel lives and two horrific acts.

The film is not easy to watch, being the story of a  young man who kills a taxi driver and is caught, brought to trial, condemned to death and executed. Both deaths are dreadful and depicted in details   

A Short Film About Killing, Krzysztof Kieslowski's powerful examination of the nature of murder, was a stunning success at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, taking home the Jury prize. In the same year, the film also captured Europe's coveted Felix award. An extended version of Decalogue 5, A Short Film About Killing was one of two features to spring from Kieslowski's ten-part television drama about applying the Ten Commandments to modern-day life (The other being A Short Film About Love ).

There are two murders in A Short Film About Killing: the killing of the cab driver, which runs slightly over seven minutes in length (may the longest murder in the history of cinema) and the execution of Jacek, a scene that lasts about five minutes and Kieslowski doesn't spare the audience any details. 

Jacek (Miroslaw Baka) climbs into the taxi driven by Waldemar (Jan Tesarz), tells him to drive to a remote location, then brutally strangles him seemingly without motive. He's soon arrested , with his only ally his idealist defense attorney , Piotr (Krzysztof Globisz) for whom this is the first case.  
Defending his client, Piotr throws himself into the trial, get emotionally connected to Jacek but but the outcome is never in doubt. 

"There are moments when you feel everything is possible" Piotr says to his girlfriend who he brought to cafe to celebrate passing the final exam and officially becoming lawyer certainly seems to be one of those moments for young Piotor. 
In the same cafe at the same time Jacek is eating the cake waiting for the police officer from the street to go away so he can go get available  taxi driver for ride in order to kill him. But there was nothing to be done there nor later during the trial , the destiny of the young Jacek seems to be written deep in the stone , as well as the one of the grumpy taxi driver Waldemar who would be alive had he picked the passenger he did not like few moments earlier.

On the other note the character of taxi driver Waldemar  is quite interestingly depicted  in this story and his love for "big dogs" and hate for the "small ones" is certainly something I can relate to . 

THE DECALOGUE

The Decalogue(1988)

Initially made for Polish television with the idea of selecting ten different filmmakers to direct each one-hour episode—two of them to be expanded into theatrical features—Kieslowski and Piesiewicz began to “suspect intuitively that Decalogue could be marketed abroad.” Indeed, the series, which Kieslowski ultimately directed with nine different cinematographers, became a critical sensation on the festival circuit and served as the West’s first major exposure to his work.

The Decalogue films are noted for their tight dramatic constructions, vividly rendered characters, and emotionally resonant ethical dilemmas depicting characters attempting to live in the modern world according to (or in search of) presupposed ideals. Although Biblical in theme, the series’ only explicit foray into theological meaning occurs in Decalogue: One, with its heart-rending story of a father dependent upon rationality and technology who is devastated by his son’s illogical death. In a striking image, the father (played by Henryk Baranowski) knocks over an altar in grief, causing a candle to drip down the face a Virgin Mary icon like paraffin tears—an enigmatic and yet wholly appropriate beginning to a series confronting the harsh realities of daily life in dialectical relationship to its metaphysical values.


Kieslowski chose Decalogue: Five and the Ministry of Arts and Culture (who funded the series) chose Decalogue: Six as the two episodes to be expanded into features entitled, respectively, A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love.

Decalogue Synopsis >>>

https://easterneuropeanmovies.com/melodrama/a-short-film-about-love

https://easterneuropeanmovies.com/melodrama/a-short-film-about-killing

https://easterneuropeanmovies.com/drama/dekalog-one

 

All parts >>>

Ten commandments, 10 films. Krzysztof Kieslowski sat for months in his small, smoke-filled room in Warsaw writing the scripts with a lawyer he’d met in the early 1980s, during the Solidarity trials. Krzysztof Piesiewicz didn’t know how to write, the director remembered, but he could talk. For hours they talked about Poland in turmoil, and together they wrote the screenplay for “No End” (1985), which told three stories of life under martial law. The government found it unsympathetic, the opposition found it compromised, and the Catholic church found it immoral. During the controversy, the collaborators ran into each other in the rain, and Piesiewicz, maybe looking for more trouble, shouted, “Someone should make a film about the Ten Commandments.”

 

They made 10 films, each an hour long, for Polish television. The series ran in the late 1980s, played at Venice and other film festivals, and gathered extraordinary praise. But the form was ungainly for theatrical showing (do you ask audiences to sit for 10 hours, or come for five two-hour sessions?), and “The Decalogue” never had an ordinary U.S. theatrical run, nor was it available here on video. Now, at last, it is being released in North America on tapes and DVD discs.

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-decalogue-1988

Zbigniew Preisner - DEKALOG Soundtrack (Full)

1. 1. 8.1/10IMDb91%Rotten Tomatoes

1. 1. Initial release: March 11, 1988 (Warsaw)

      Director: Krzysztof Kieślowski

      Cinematography: Sławomir Idziak

      Awards: European Film Award for Best Film, Cannes Jury Prize, MORE

      Screenplay: Krzysztof Kieślowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz
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Short Film About Killing YouTube >>>

FILM DIRECTORS-KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI >>>

A Short Film About Killing is one of the most significant works of late 20th-century European cinema. Originally conceived as the fifth episode of Kieślowski's ten-part television series Dekalog (based on the Ten Commandments), it was expanded into a feature film that went on to win the Jury Prize at Cannes and the first-ever European Film Award for Best Film.

Narrative Structure: Two Murders

The film is divided into two distinct halves, each centered on a brutal act of killing.

• The Individual Act: The first half follows Jacek, a 19-year-old drifter wandering through a bleak, mid-winter Warsaw. He eventually hails a taxi driven by Waldemar, a rude and unpleasant man. In a remote location, Jacek brutally murders Waldemar. The scene is famous for being one of the most harrowing in cinema history—not because of "gore," but because of its agonizing length (over seven minutes) and the clumsy, desperate nature of the struggle.

• The State Act: The second half follows Jacek’s trial and execution. Despite the passionate efforts of his young defense attorney, Piotr, Jacek is sentenced to death. The film then meticulously documents the bureaucratic and mechanical process of the state-sanctioned hanging, mirroring the brutality of the first murder with the cold efficiency of the second.

Character Studies

Jacek (The Killer)

Jacek is initially presented as a purely nihilistic figure—he drops stones from highway overpasses onto cars and scares away pigeons that a woman is feeding. However, as the film progresses, he is revealed to be a displaced soul. His migration from the countryside to the city has left him alienated. The late-film revelation regarding the accidental death of his sister provides a psychological "why" to his behavior, suggesting that his violence is a misdirected expression of grief and abandonment.

Piotr (The Lawyer)

Piotr serves as the film’s moral compass. We first see him passing his bar exam, full of youthful idealism. His journey is one of profound disillusionment; he represents the "Good" in a system that refuses to listen. His final, tearful confrontation with Jacek in the prison cell highlights the inadequacy of the legal system to address the human complexities of crime.

Historical Impact

The film had a profound real-world effect in Poland:

• Legislative Change: The graphic nature of the execution scene was so disturbing to the Polish public and authorities that it sparked a massive debate on capital punishment.

• Moratorium: Shortly after the film’s release, the Polish government declared a five-year moratorium on the death penalty.

• Abolition: Poland eventually abolished capital punishment entirely in 1997.

Dekalog (1989)

Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Dekalog (1989) is widely regarded as one of the absolute pinnacles of television and cinematic history. Co-written with Krzysztof Piesiewicz, this ten-part Polish miniseries is loosely structured around the Ten Commandments, but it completely avoids preachy, black-and-white moralizing.

Instead, it explores complex psychological and ethical dilemmas faced by ordinary residents living in a bleak, monolithic housing project in late-communist Warsaw.

Key Cinematic & Philosophical Pillars

• The Shared Microcosm: By setting the entire series within a single high-rise apartment complex, Kieślowski creates a claustrophobic, interconnected ecosystem. Characters from one episode frequently pass by in the background of another, emphasizing shared human alienation and silent proximity.

• The Unnamed Witness: A silent, unnamed young man (played by Artur Barciś) appears in eight of the ten episodes. He never speaks or interferes; he simply observes the protagonists at pivotal moments of moral crisis, acting as a metaphysical mirror or an embodying presence of fate, conscience, or the divine.

• Visual Philosophy: To keep each story distinct despite the identical setting, Kieślowski used nine different cinematographers (including Sławomir Idziak and Jacek Bławut). Each episode carries a unique visual temperature, color palette, and lens texture to reflect its specific psychological weight.

Structure and Core Dilemmas

The magic of Dekalog lies in how indirectly it treats the Commandments. Kieślowski never explicitly names which commandment belongs to which episode, inviting the viewer to parse the moral friction.

Episode	Theme / Focal Point	The Central Conflict
Dekalog: One	I am the Lord thy God / No false idols	A rationalist professor relies entirely on a computer program to measure ice thickness, leaving no room for the unpredictable or metaphysical—until his son goes ice skating.
Dekalog: Two	Thou shalt not take the name of thy Lord in vain	A doctor is forced to make a medical prognosis that will dictate whether a pregnant woman aborts her child or carries it to term.
Dekalog: Three	Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy	A married man is drawn away from his family on Christmas Eve by a desperate former lover who fabricates an emergency.
Dekalog: Four	Honor thy father and thy mother	A complex, emotionally raw relationship between a father and daughter is fractured when she discovers a letter suggesting they aren't biologically related.
Dekalog: Five	Thou shalt not kill	A brutal, senseless murder by a young man is mirrored by the cold, mechanical, and institutionalized execution carried out by the state. (Expanded into the feature film 'A Short Film About Killing')
Dekalog: Six	Thou shalt not commit adultery	A lonely, voyeuristic young postal worker spies on an older, cynical woman across the courtyard, shifting into an intense study of love vs. obsession. (Expanded into 'A Short Film About Love')
Dekalog: Seven	Thou shalt not steal	A young woman kidnaps her own biological daughter, who has been raised by her mother as a sister, exploring ownership over human life and affection.
Dekalog: Eight	Thou shalt not bear false witness	An ethics professor is confronted by a Jewish woman whom she refused to protect during the Holocaust based on a strict moral technicality.
Dekalog: Nine	Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife	A doctor diagnosed with permanent impotence deals with intense jealousy and voyeurism after encouraging his wife to take a lover.
Dekalog: Ten	Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods	A dark comedy/tragedy where two estranged brothers inherit an incredibly rare, fortunes-worth stamp collection, descending into paranoia and obsession.

"They are a story of people caught in a trap... people who don't know which way to turn, who don't know what is right and what is wrong, and who are desperately looking for a guidepost."

— Krzysztof Kieślowski

Dekalog: One (Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me)

• The Plot: Krzysztof, a brilliant linguistics professor, places absolute faith in reason, science, and his computer. He uses a mathematical formula to calculate that the ice on the local pond is thick enough for his young son, Paweł, to test out his new ice skates.

• The Dilemma: It explores the tragedy of intellectual hubris. Krzysztof turns rationality into a false idol, completely discounting the unpredictable chaos of the physical and metaphysical world—with heartbreaking consequences.

Dekalog: Two (Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of the Lord Thy God in Vain)

• The Plot: Dorota’s husband Andrzej is dying of cancer in a hospital. Dorota is pregnant, but the baby belongs to her lover. She wants an abortion unless Andrzej is going to die, in which case she will keep the child. She demands that Andrzej’s doctor swear on his medical oath whether the husband will survive.

• The Dilemma: The doctor faces a god-like choice. He must offer a definitive prophecy about life and death, weaponizing a "false" oath to influence whether an unborn child is allowed to live.

Dekalog: Three (Remember the Sabbath Day, to Keep It Holy)

• The Plot: On Christmas Eve, a family man named Janusz is confronted by Ewa, an old flame. She claims her husband has gone missing in the city and begs Janusz to help her search for him through the night.

• The Dilemma: Janusz abandons his sacred family holiday out of a sense of duty, only to realize Ewa’s husband actually left her years ago. The search was a desperate, lonely ruse to see if she could survive the holiday night with someone beside her.

Dekalog: Four (Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother)

• The Plot: Anka and her father, Michał, share a deeply affectionate, borderline flirtatious relationship. After finding an unopened letter from her late mother, Anka lies and tells Michał she read it, and that it reveals he is not her biological father.

• The Dilemma: The revelation strips away their societal roles as parent and child, forcing them to confront the taboo, deeply complex romantic tension that has silently developed between them.

Dekalog: Five (Thou Shalt Not Kill)

• The Plot: Jacek, a drifted, alienated youth, senselessly and brutally murders a taxi driver. He is caught, tried, and subsequently defended by Piotr, a passionate, idealistic young lawyer who ultimately fails to save Jacek from the death penalty.

• The Dilemma: Kieślowski crafts a blistering critique of violence by mirroring two horrific acts: the chaotic, ugly murder committed by an individual, and the cold, calculated, and institutionalized execution carried out by the state.

Dekalog: Six (Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery)

• The Plot: Tomek, a lonely 19-year-old postal worker, uses a telescope to spy on Magda, an older, sexually liberated woman living across the courtyard. When he finally confesses his obsession to her, she cynically tries to humiliate him by proving that love is just a physical transaction.

• The Dilemma: A profound role reversal occurs. Tomek’s pure, naive concept of love is shattered by Magda's cynicism, but his subsequent despair awakens a genuine, painful capacity for deep emotional love inside Magda.

Dekalog: Seven (Thou Shalt Not Steal)

• The Plot: Majka, a young woman, secretly gave birth to a daughter, Ania, as a teenager. To avoid scandal, Majka's overbearing mother, Ewa, legally adopted Ania and raised the girl as her own daughter. Feeling erased and desperate, Majka kidnaps Ania and plans to flee Canada.

• The Dilemma: A battle over who "owns" a child's love. Majka is stealing her own biological daughter, but in doing so, she threatens to shatter the only stable maternal world the child has ever known.

Dekalog: Eight (Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness)

• The Plot: Zofia, an elderly ethics professor in Warsaw, is visited by Elżbieta, a Jewish woman visiting from America. Decades earlier, during WWII, Zofia and her husband refused to sign false baptismal papers to save a 6-year-old Elżbieta from the Gestapo, citing a moral rule against lying.

• The Dilemma: Zofia is forced to confront the legacy of her past choice. She hid behind an unyielding moral absolute ("thou shalt not lie"), but that rigid adherence to abstract morality nearly cost an innocent child her life.

Dekalog: Nine (Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife)

• The Plot: Roman learns he is permanently impotent. Out of a mix of despair and love, he tells his wife, Hanka, she should take a lover. However, when she actually begins an affair, Roman becomes consumed by a pathological, voyeuristic jealousy and begins spying on her.

• The Dilemma: The breakdown of trust. Both characters deeply love each other, but Roman’s insecurity and Hanka's attempt to satisfy her physical needs create a toxic spiral of suspicion that tears their emotional bond apart.

Dekalog: Ten (Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Goods)

• The Plot: Two estranged brothers, Jerzy and Artur, inherit an incredibly valuable stamp collection from their deceased father. Though initially indifferent, they quickly discover its worth and become fiercely, comically obsessed with securing and expanding it.

• The Dilemma: A dark comedy about greed. The brothers sell a kidney, sacrifice their relationships, and alienate everyone around them out of pure paranoia to protect their wealth, only to be outsmarted and robbed of everything anyway.

A Short Film About Love (1988)

A Short Film About Love (Krótki film o miłości, 1988) is the feature-length expansion of Dekalog: Six. While it shares the same core narrative foundation—a lonely 19-year-old postal worker (Tomek) obsessively spying on an older, cynical woman (Magda) living across the courtyard—the film is vastly different in its final act, pacing, and emotional resolution.

Kieślowski shot the feature version concurrently with the television series, but he completely rewrote the ending at the request of lead actress Grażyna Szapołowska, who wanted a more profound, poetic culmination to Magda’s transformation.

The Origin: Why the Feature Versions Exist

The decision to expand Dekalog: Five and Six into standalone feature films was purely pragmatic at first. To secure funding from the Polish Ministry of Culture for all ten television episodes, Kieślowski agreed to deliver two feature-length theatrical releases.

He chose Five (A Short Film About Killing) and Six (A Short Film About Love) because their scripts were structurally self-contained, allowing for a deeper exploration of individual psychology without disrupting the interconnected universe of the housing complex.

The Key Structural Differences

While the TV version (Dekalog: Six) runs roughly 58 minutes, the feature expansion stretches to 86 minutes. This extra time changes the entire weight of the narrative:

• Fleshing out Tomek’s Isolation: The first half of the feature film spends significantly more time detailing Tomek’s daily routines, his relationship with his friend's mother (who acts as his landlady), and the lengths to which he goes to interact with Magda (forging money orders, taking a job as a milkman). It heightens his deep, aching alienation before the two ever speak.

• The Radical Shift in the Ending:

  • In Dekalog: Six: After Tomek's suicide attempt, Magda seeks him out at the post office and his apartment, but he is cold, broken, and ultimately tells her that he doesn't spy on her anymore. The pure, naive fantasy of his love is dead, leaving both characters isolated.

  • In A Short Film About Love: The ending transforms into a deeply spiritual, transcendent moment of grace. Magda visits Tomek's room while he is asleep and recovering. She looks through his telescope at her own apartment across the way. In a breathtaking psychological projection, she sees a vision of herself crying at her kitchen table, with a spectral version of Tomek comforting her.

Deconstructing the Mechanics of the Gaze

The film acts as a fascinating treatise on the act of watching, heavily subverting classic cinematic voyeurism (such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window):

• Tomek’s Lack of Carnal Desire: Unlike standard voyeurism, Tomek explicitly states he doesn't want to sleep with Magda. When he watches her through the telescope, he is looking for emotional cues, not physical thrill. He reacts with anger or sadness when she brings lovers home, not out of standard sexual jealousy, but because he sees those relationships as hollow encounters that make her unhappy.

• The Telescope as an Intermediary: The telescope behaves almost like a religious icon or an emotional bridge. It shields Tomek from real-world rejection while allowing him to curate an idealized version of love. The moment they cross the courtyard to meet in person, the protective buffer drops, and the devastating clash between abstract fantasy and visceral reality begins.

A Tale of Two Endings: The Backstory

The original ending found in Dekalog: Six was far darker, matching the bleak tone of the rest of the miniseries. When Tomek returns from the hospital, his infatuation is thoroughly crushed; he rejects Magda completely, telling her, "I'm not spying on you anymore."

Grażyna Szapołowska, who played Magda, felt that this ending left her character in total despair without giving the audience any catharsis for her transformation. She begged Kieślowski for a softer, more magical realism-infused conclusion.

Kieślowski relented for the feature film, crafting the famous final sequence where Magda looks through the telescope and sees her own past self comforted by Tomek. It suggests that while the physical relationship might be impossible, the idea of Tomek's pure love has permanently altered her worldview, saving her from her own destructive cynicism.

Production Focus: Witold Adamek’s Cinematography

Unlike Dekalog: Five (which used heavy green filters to create an oppressive atmosphere), cinematographer Witold Adamek fills A Short Film About Love with deep, rich blues, amber lamp lighting, and sudden bursts of symbolic color—most notably the red glass textures within the apartment complex stairwells. The camerawork relies heavily on long zoom lenses, mirroring the telescope's focus, making the viewer complicit in the act of looking and longing.

Zbigniew Preisner’s Sonic Architecture

The emotional heavy lifting of the film is profoundly aided by Kieślowski's frequent collaborator, composer Zbigniew Preisner.

The score relies on haunting, minimalist acoustic guitar phrases and solo woodwinds that mirror the stark emptiness of the apartment complex. Rather than filling space, the music acts as a proxy for the unsaid words between the two characters, stepping in precisely during the long stretches of silence where Tomek and Magda are simply looking across the open air at one another.

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