Dekalog Five,
in its long version (significantly more violent), shook la Croisette in 1988, revealing to the
world a relatively confidential filmmaker outside its borders. The story is
diabolically simple. While Jacek (Mirosław Baka) wanders the streets of Warsaw,
commits acts of aggression (knocking
down a man in the urinals, throwing a cinderblock on road from a bridge),
procuring a rope, having it reproduced in magnification photograph of a little
girl whose meaning will not be cleared up until later, Piotr (Krzysztof
Globisz) presents the principles of the rule of law and the problem of the
death penalty - a monopoly of violence by public institutions for prohibitive
function of sentences never fully verified.
Jacek is then
taken in a taxi by a driver (Jan Tesarz) which he leads on a remote road to
murder him wildly. An ellipse projects us, the day of his execution, where his
lawyer proves to be the preliminary questioned. Since the Platonic fable of the
Gygès ring, persists the justification of a punitive state as prevention
against certain crimes (according to the finding that some would kill and rape
without a soul if they did not run any risk of being punished). The murderous
madness that takes possession of Jacek calls into question the validity,
according to this ancient logic, of capital punishment. It will not prevent
such a case.
To shoot The
Decalogue, Kieślowski summons various cinematographers (almost one per episode)
to whom he does not give strong instructions as to the lighting. Paradoxically,
the result seems generally homogeneous. With the notable exception of this
title. Sławomir Idziak signs the sepia cinematography, with greenish and yellow
hues, announcing the aesthetic achievement (of which he has not yet achieved
harmony here) of his director’s masterpiece, The Double Life of Véronique. His
work tends towards an expressionism in keeping with the symbolism of the
staging (like this devil swinging in front of a vehicle). this episode where
the main character seems the least responsible (emotionally too unstable,
psychically too weakened), denounces the death penalty.
This is not by filming the execution of an innocent man, but by the much more radical and effective way of filming that of a certain culprit, having illustrated himself by a particularly incomprehensible and atrocious crime. His own death, his ritualized, mechanized violence, only appears more violent (the preparatory visit to the place of the execution by his executioner is to turn pale with fear in his impersonality).
In a sense, the killer's final attempt to humanize
(when he brings up the trauma of the death, of which he feels indirectly
guilty, of a little sister) only weakens this criticism. Especially since Jacek
then seems more humanized than his victim, nameless, characterized as
unpleasant. Although the principle may apply here too: the worst of humans does
not deserve to be killed for no (or even the slightest) reason, as he is.
Similarly, a State cannot have the right of life and death over its citizens.
There is a
Rousseau background to this pamphlet (the only directly socio-political episode
of the series), caught up in the absurdity of existence, playing the rascal
until sinking into psychopathy, still a foot in childhood (on several occasions
little boys and girls greet him through a window), an element of fundamental
savagery. The criticism is redoubled by the guilt of the lawyer, a young member
of the bar, devastated at not having been able to save the life of his client,
who transmits to him the hatred of society. Łazar is the name of Jacek, like
the one Christ brought back from the dead. Power that ordinary people don't
have. What right do they then have, knowing the irreversibility of this choice,
to take the lives of others?
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