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Impressive and thought provoking, this film debates the age-old topic of capital punishment. Here though, there is a difference. The morality of state-killing is critiqued alongside an analysis of individual agency - when a person kills another, apparently from a desire to murder, are there other motives and factors that bring him/her to this position? Are we all, given certain circumstances, capable of killing?

This tantalising and worrying notion has been considered elsewhere, and Camus' 'The Outsider' is a good example. Here, there are many parallels with Kieslowski's film: that a desire to kill - and killing itself - can be driven by a range of factors - some banal, some traumatic, and not all by any means within the control of the protagonist.

I am sure this is not the most depressing film ever made, I am sure that somewhere, some time, some one has made a more distressing and emotionally powerful look at humans in all there glory. I'm sure people have endeavoured to make a film that makes a city (in this case Warsaw) look bleaker and darker. And I'm sure that this isn't the most painful spiral downhill voyage any character has ever made on celluloid. I'm also sure that this movie is the darkest movie on every level I have ever seen.

The director uses dark filters at time to make this movie almost black, but all that is does is replicate the feel of the material. Which was essentially an anti capital punishment movie. We follow a young man's trip to the dark side, troubled by an unnamed past this movie is a lot like The Machinist or Requiem for A Dream, we can see this man faltering and we feel helpless. The movie is compelling the same way a car wreck is.

You shouldn't be able to watch a movie this black, from the start with a cat in a terrible position to the end with a human in a terrible position, this is only a film that could have been made in Europe. Humans are painted in a despicable way, but it's the city of Warsaw that looks like it's about to grab you at any moment.

This is a very visual way of telling a story, words are almost not necessary throughout the whole film, except a brilliant conversation between lawyer and client. And another brilliant thing about this movie is there is not a "the capital punishment law is wrong" speech by a lawyer to be seen, the movie tells you what it wants you to know without a lawyer ramming in down your throat.

Subtle is best. And in this case a picture does tell a thousand words.

This is a slow burning painfully beautiful look at killing, and if you can sit through its 80 minutes of bleakness, you may never forget its imagery.

Although this movie concerns itself with one of the paramount taboos, its evocative intensity is kept quite impassive. Perhaps the intention is to allow the viewer the freedom of choice: to either accept consciously, the facts of life, with all its "red in tooth and claw" aspects, {a form of realism}, or to resist the blind, impulsive irrationality of sado- masochistic gratification with all its pathological undertones.

Kieslowski divides his tale into three main parts - the first part introduces the three main characters - the candidate advocate who is being examined by the Board for his Bar entrance - we are introduced to a man of a sensitive nature, thoughtful and unconvinced after four years of practice that punishment is a deterrent {although he concedes that it might be a deterrent ,or at least intimidatory to those for whom crime is not a natural calling}. He offers a reference from Genesis stating that the threat of punishment did not deter Cain from murdering Abel. The next character is a youth who walks aimlessly looking at cinema posters, amusing himself in rebellious and anti-social ways. The third character is a taxi driver who is seen cleaning and shining his car. Kieslowski has given him a rather disagreeable personality.

The second part of the movie has the three main characters slowly and inexorably moving towards each other so that the precise details of their intertwined destinies can be unfolded. The advocate is seen with his wife in the same coffee house as the punkish youth. The youth then randomly selects a taxi to drive him to a desolate country road where in a slowly enacted, drawn out scene, he garottes and bludgeons the taxi driver, who begs for mercy on behalf of his wife and children. The viewer is left in no doubt as to the horror of the act as the youth raises a large stone and smashes the victims head with it.

The movie then experiences a jump cut in editing as the capture and trial of the murderer are omitted and the thread of the story continues with the youth being found guilty. This causes the advocate to go through a soul searching period of whether his defence of the youth was competent. Kieslowski, finally allows the viewer biographical access to the life of the youth/murderer - this is the only part of the movie driven by emotional values as we learn of the tragedies in his life and his need to be reassured that at least in death he would be buried close to his father and sister whom he both obviously loved. This is a brilliant preparatory moment as the viewer is made conscious of this up -to-now abstract figure, who up to this point had elicited no sympathy at all. Now the viewer is jolted into consciousness as the humanity of the murderer transforms him back into a human being.

The third part of the movie - the final curtain, is the carrying out of the death penalty.Unlike Hollywood, where as in "Dead Man Walking", Sean Penn is shown walking to his doom still embracing his pride - Kieslowski depicts the taking of life, first, with the murder of the taxi driver in a long protracted scene, and then with the Judicial murder, a heart wrenching display of fear and struggle leaving the viewer feeling personally assaulted and gut-wrenched {at least that's how I felt}.

Only a master of the practice of art could have pulled this off. When one thinks of what to reference this movie to, other movies don't come to mind. Rather one has to look at literature {as I'm sure Kieslowski did}. Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" and Musil's "The Man Without Qualities" spring to mind. I take the fact that this movie is to be compared with major works of literary art to be high praise indeed

If you want more than pulp movies then this philosophical discourse on the nature of life and death will leave you somehow enhanced and certainly more aware. Highly recommended.

The bleakest, most powerful of Kieslowski's Dekalog series opens with half the screen black, and the other half full of a cat hanged by the neck from a street railing. Children scamper off in the background, laughing. The words of the title appear over the black. Bam. We're in. And we're not allowed out of this bleak, miserable world until the end credits. We must crawl through a world where humour is exiled and bitterness and cynicism reign, with our eyes fitted with lenses hand-painted by the director, turning Warsaw into a jaded defeated landscape of dirty sepias and dishwater greys. The story is simple; a young man kills a taxi driver and is, in turn, killed by the state. Just as the title says. There is no humour, no light relief. It's awful, somehow beautiful, constantly disturbing. It's dirty and tawdry. While cinema barrages us daily with glib murders by the bucketful, Kieslowski gives us just two, and shows us killing for what it is: a bare foot emerging from a shoe & sock as a dying man writhes; blood and urine dribbling into a plastic tray under the gallows. A film which haunts.

Kieslowski made a wonderful film. He made this film because he didn't agree with the death penalty in Poland at the time. This philosophical movie has : a great leading role (by Baka), great directing (Kieslowski) and great scenario (Kieslowski with Piesiewicz). This move has been made for TV but along with another parts of "The Decalogue". In 2005 the "Time Magazine" gave this film a title "One of the 100 greatest films ever made" (of course along with another nine of the "Decalogue"). Kieslowski became one of the best polish and European producers and directors. Miroslaw Baka and Krzysztof Globisz (great!) became very popular actors. This film is for anyone who likes strong film, not highly overloaded by special effects but unforgettable.