Polish Brutalism
A Short Film About Killing review
By
gothicHM from Herts
- 12
- 3
9th August 2004
This philosophical enquiry into the impact of killing on the human psyche lacks the humour and subtlety of its companion piece 'A Short Film About Love'. Here we are presented with the doubts and ambitions of an over sensitive barrister living in a brutalised world where everyone and everything is merely a potential victim.
The opening scene sets the tone as we follow the path of carcasses from the previous night's killings in just one rundown housing estate. As the film progresses we see the experiences of these victims - insects, vermin, pets are a microcosm of the mindless brutality which (according to this director) runs through Polish society. Killing whether a mindless act of vandalism (a rock thrown from a bridge onto speeding traffic), an arbitary act of violence (the murder of a taxi driver) or the planned ritual of a state execution, is shown as a natural outcome of social alienation. With each death human sympathy, imagination and passion is eroded until nothing is left but to survive.
A bleak view in keeping with the bleak landscapes which pervade this film.
