![]() ![]() Except was Becker's first feature, and while it is extremely entertaining, it definitely shows a bit of an unsteady hand. Truly one of the most fruitful artistic extended partnerships in the history of exploitation cinema. Together they've done everything from the Evil Deadseries, to Zena: Warrior Princess, to Spider-Man, to Alien Apocalypse and beyond. Intruder, writer Evil Dead 2), Bruce Campbell (Bruce Fucking Campbell), and producer Rob Tapert. The group includes such exploitation favorites as the Raimi Brothers (Sam, Ted, Ivan), Becker ( Thou Shalt Not Kill. That small core crew of people went on to make a huge impression on the low budget feature world. Becker was in charge of the lighting on Sam Raimi's breakout feature, The Evil Dead. The implication is that such certainty can provide the excuse for any type of act - that anything can be rationalized and justified by the powers of regulation.Synapse Films' Intruder was one of the finest Blu-ray releases of 2011, and they've followed it up with another of the films from the Michigan Mafia, Josh Becker's Thou Shalt Not Kill. Yet it is the moral certainty that informs the young man’s punishment that is shocking. Furthermore, the person he murders is portrayed without the slightest hint of compassion. ![]() There is no possibility of the wrong man being executed. There is no doubt that the state is “correct” in pronouncing the young man guilty. Thou Shalt Not Kill depicts the instability of moral authority, as represented by the state. It merely produces another act that mirrors itself. The investigation of the first murder does not produce a rational justification or mitigating circumstances. The elision of what might be expected to follow such a horrific act, i.e., the explication of the crime through the police or trial process, reinforces the similarities between the two events. For example, the transition from the initial murder to the scene of the killer in jail awaiting his own death is accomplished by a surprisingly brief courtroom scene in which the young man is pronounced guilty and sentenced. Kieslowski’s reductive narrative style helps account for the film’s almost physical effect on the spectator. His death seems more like a mugging in a parking lot than a systematic rendering of justice by a higher moral authority. Later, when the prisoner starts to struggle, just before his sentence is to be carried out, the various steps which have been minutely planned by the prison authorities come completely unravelled. The cabbie is, in turn, strangled around the neck and mouth, pummeled with a tire iron, and smashed in the face with a rock before he finally expires. Both are characterized by a series of clumsy, inept actions. ![]() The killing of the cab driver and the execution of his murderer are excruciatingly blunt. After drawing these narrative lines, Kieslowski quickly connects them: the young man murders the cab driver, and the state appoints the lawyer to represent him at his trial. A sadistic taxi driver, nearly comically repugnant, appears next, followed by an idealistic lawyer who has just passed his bar exam. A disturbed man, in his early twenties, wanders around a Polish city, enveloped in a sort of violent haze, the reasons for which are unclear. The film begins by following the paths of three separate characters. They represent nothing beyond themselves-two frighteningly brutal events. They are not mere pretexts on which to base a film they do not trigger a police story, a whodunit, or a series of subsequent actions. Its emphasis is on two violent acts, one condoned and one condemned by the state. The title of Krysztof Kieslowski’s film, Thou Shalt Not Kill, 1988, is bluntly explanatory. Eventually, we realize that the animals represent the fates of two of the film’s characters: one is senselessly murdered and the other is killed by the state for his actions. It is followed by a shot of a cat that has just been hung by a gang of children. The first shot is of a dead rat in a murky puddle. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |