"Killing Commandments" is only 80 minutes long, but it is the most carefully managed one in Kee's "Ten Commandments". In this film, he deeply criticized and reflected on the law, ethics, human nature and redemption of civilized society, and expressed his worried doubts. There are three main characters in the film: the murderer Jack, the slain taxi driver, and the young lawyer Peter. In the first half, the three people are in their own narrative time and space. Although there has been no positive contact, the intersection of the cameras suggests the connection between them. For example, lawyer Peter said to the examiner when he was participating in the employment defense: "In the past four years, I have been exposed to many cases." At this time, the screen suddenly switched to Jack walking towards a dark alley with his back to the camera. The background music was full of Cold murder. When Peter excitedly told people on the street that he had passed the defense, the taxi driver sneered behind him. The most obvious contrast is in the dining room, when Peter shares the joy of passing the defense with his girlfriend, while Jack is winding the rope to be used to kill. The switching of these scenes clearly implies to us: when a person is discussing the law, when a student passes his lawyer's qualifications, the premeditated murder or even the murder is going on at the same time. The absurdity of this existence is even more profound when Jack strangled the taxi driver. During the process of breaking free and counter-breaking, the picture cuts into a person riding a bicycle not far away, a train, a horse The indifferent horse, the alienated external world did not notice the cruel scene that human beings were performing at the moment. These meticulous graphics put the hardest question in front of us: crime is everywhere, and it can be all around you without you noticing.
In the second half of the film, through the trial of Jack, the three clues are twisted together. The process of the trial was deliberately omitted, because the audience knew what was waiting for the intentional murderer, so the first sentence of the screen cut into the trial was "Is it all over?" "It's all over." The next thing to do is to Execute Jack. Remorseful defense attorney Peter demanded a final conversation with Jack, allowing thirty minutes. During the conversation between the two, the screen cuts to the scene of the prison guard, the prosecutor and the executioner waiting from time to time. Time becomes inexplicably cruel here, and space becomes inexplicably absurd here. Two groups of people compete against time in different spaces, with the same anxiety, in different directions. The picture has always been very quiet, a kind of stillness wrapped in the breath of death, and the sound of the iron door hitting is particularly long, that is the door of death that is about to pass.
All the people who were supposed to come when the execution was executed, the prosecutors who performed their duties and read the verdict, the priest who came to routinely forgive, the doctor who routinely proved the death, and of course the executioner in a black suit and the guilty man. peter. At this moment, the one who is most panicked is Jack, with his tightly pressed arms and twitching facial muscles, in the face of death, he is begging for "I don't want" just like the taxi driver who was killed by him, except that he is really pity on the side. The weeping lawyer, all faces were indifferent, and the priest who backed away when Jack kissed the back of his hand was nothing more than a phantom emptiness. When the fast-moving sling made a loud noise, Jack was executed, and the executioner on the side walked out from behind the darkness to face the camera. Under the illumination of the top light, he nodded like a falcon: It's over!
Viewers who pay attention to the details will find that Jack used a rope to kill the taxi driver, and he was hanged by the rope; Jack used a blanket to cover the driver's eyes, and he was also blindfolded when he was executed. If the former shows retribution, then the latter is the director's ingenuity. What are the eyes? A poetic phrase that often hangs on the lips is "the eyes are the windows to the soul". Eyes can convey love and hate, and through the eyes of the dead we see not only the dead body, but also the calling and inspection of the soul. Jack who killed the first time did not dare to face it, and the prison guards who had executed many executions did not dare to face it, because we did not dare to face what was behind it, maybe it was God's gaze, our potential fear is because Think we know - we are all human, and we kill each other!
Just look at these people: Jack, a boy with tousled hair and a ruthless gaze roaming the streets, he is the film's superficial killer, he should be ruthless and cruel, but in When he joked with the little girl outside the glass in the restaurant, his smile was innocent, and when he talked to the lawyer about his sister, his emotions were gentle. But when he faced an adult, he was indifferent and even deliberately provocative and uncooperative, fell down an unknown young man in the toilet, teased the passerby, and deceived the passenger who was in a hurry. . Compared with him, the taxi driver's uncooperative behavior is even more annoying. He tacitly agrees that others will walk for a walk after he has finished washing the car, and he will drive the car away when he sees someone helping a drunken person toward him. When he saw a wild dog, he threw it bread, but when he saw a pet dog on a leash, he honked its horn to scare it away. When we know that he has the habit of buying lottery tickets, it is not difficult to understand the unbalanced psychology. Similar situations are often encountered in our life, and there are always some people who will not cooperate with you like they are angry. And the emotion is contagious because one doesn't want others to be happier than him. This emotion permeates all around us, it provokes hatred, and it accumulates in a person, and when it grows up, it is killing intent. Whether you have tasted this emotion, whether you have exerted it, whether you have restrained it, only you know. But when you see the innocent smile of a child and hear the children's song "I'm a little lion, the old lion told me to love each other", do you feel guilty?
The entire film was shot with a special color filter. The yellow-green picture is divided into two parts of light and dark contrast. The faces of the characters are dark and unclear. The gloomy and dull streets are filled with oppressive air, and the modern city is full of gloomy shadows. Unidentified wandering spirits, there are many dead animals at the beginning of the film, and the whole city seems to be being attacked by a plague. In the film, we have reason to believe that this is the director's impressionistic rendering of modern society, an allegorical exaggeration. "There is no law that can prevent crime since the beginning of man." This is Peter's view of the law. The only function of the law is to deter people. "It cannot make people feel guilty and reflect." The punishment for a murderer is to use the state apparatus to kill him in the name of justice. We are using murder to prevent murder, and to increase the deterrence of this commandment by spreading the killing precept. The elaboration of the law can only prove the weakening of self-discipline or morality. In today's society, if the law disappears for a minute, no devout believers have the confidence to guarantee what the world will be like?
The only person who can reflect on the law in the film is the lawyer Peter. Before Jack was executed, it was not the priest of the symbol, but Peter who acted as the savior. He said to the prison guard, "Our conversation will never end!" But apparently, in the face of a powerful state machine, his redemption was nothing more than a man's arm. The verdict clearly states that "there is no amnesty" and that redemption is just a pure fantasy. Even if Jack promises to be a good man from now on, it will only increase the power of the tragedy and will not help. Watching the film we see the contrast, and we might pity one and hate the other. But when we return the background to the real world, we realize that all this is what you and I have acquiesced in, because we will not believe Jack's guarantee. We already have the acquiescence answer to the question of good and evil in human nature, and we do not believe He doesn't believe in himself either, which means that we don't believe in human nature. Everything in this society is constructed by the power of you and me. It is we who have given up redemption. We cannot change human nature. We can only use the state machine to behave like other mechanical products. We have soberly and rationally denied ourselves. redemption.
The last shot of the film: Peter drives into the field, crying alone.
View more about A Short Film About Killing reviews
