Amanda: Decalogue 5

“Thou shall not kill”

I really liked this film and Kieslowski’s ability to yet again portray such a hard life question in such a challenging and thought provoking manner. This is specifically true for a commandment that seems so cut and dry as to what is right and wrong, but in reality has a large grey area. Kieslowski purposefully creates the characters of both the killer and the victim to not be particularly likeable and in his doing so it affects the audience’s reaction to the murder. There is no doubt that the murder is premeditated and that the kid sets out to take a life at random, yet as the story unfolds we begin to sympathize with a cold blooded murderer.
The real question here is not if the kid is guilty of the crime and to be held responsible for his actions, but how this judgment of justice is to be carried out and who’s role it is to enforce it. Certainly, he should be punished for the great wrong he did, greatly overstepping his limits of freedom and taking the life of another, but how is this issue resolved without continuing the cycle and crossing this line of individual freedom and human rights? He can either be removed from society and have his freedom and rights taken away, or he can have his entire right to life taken away.
We can say that the state has the power to make this decision to take a life in order to instate justice, yet we must recognize that the state is not a thing; it is made up of people, people that must push a button, pull a level or a trigger in order for this “justice” to be carried out. How is that man then free to walk around among us, waking up to go to work every day in order to take human lives? Why the double standard here?
I found the conversation that was provoked after this film to be particularly interesting and was very curious to think about how it would have gone if it was continued. I really enjoyed this film because it is so challenging and people’s opinions on this particular film reveal a lot about their character and overall views on life. This film is particularly hard to process because life and death are not things that can be ignored or put off on a later date to discuss, they are topics we must face and form decisions about… whether we like it or not.