Decalogue 2 - Elizabeth Roy

Kieslowski’s segment of his Decalogue series is midrash (interpretation of scripture) for the commandment Thou Shalt Not Kill. In this segment, an emotionally damaged man is scarred by the early death of his younger sister. In a bizarre crime, he kills a taxi driver, a complete stranger, by strangling him. The filmmaker, in an unusual twist, makes the viewers sympathize not with the ‘victim’ but with the ‘killer.’ The taxi driver is seen as a little slimy and not a particularly moral person – the viewer feels distaste for him. The young man, though, is portrayed as innocent and in emotional anguish not of his fault, and the viewer sees him or herself in him. The viewers are forced to reinterpret ‘thou shalt not kill’ when the young man, the murderer, is executed because of his crime. Who do we see as more evil and most in violation of the commandment? Is it the boy, who although he murdered in cold blood has been damaged because of emotional trauma? Or is it those who condemn him to death – who are, after all, just doing their job? Or is it us, because we, as a society, did not help the boy, and then made laws that commanded murder – directly in opposition to God’s commandment?