REVIEW ‘ZERO KILLED’ @ I-FLICKS

by Ivan Radford | I-Flicks, Sept 30, 2012

I’m gonna kill him! How many times have you said that? What if you went one step further and actually thought about how you’d do it? That’s what director Michal Kosakowski asked people all around the world – on the condition that if they were going to share their murder fantasy, they had to act it out in front of the camera.

The result is a halfway house between social study and snuff movies – a disturbing look at the dark side of human nature. Sound unpleasant? It is. Kosakowski spent 10 years on the project (presumably the Midsomer Murders DVD box set had sold out), getting subjects to reflect on what they did several years down the line.

“The memory is still so fresh…” says one, before we see his short film. It’ll probably stay fresh for some time – even for those in the audience. Each murder is unsettlingly believable, shot with a gritty feel, cutting away as a bell rings to mark the kill. But for all its grimy realism, the bright, sterile vox pops are what really get under the skin.

Some laugh about what they did. Others are less serious. “I’ve always wanted to know what it would be like to push someone into a volcano,” jokes one guy, drily. Meanwhile, almost all of them, it turns out, would gladly kill if it meant revenge for a loved one.

“I believe it has a lot to do with self-esteem,” suggests one woman. “If you respect yourself, how can you not value someone else?”

She’s backed up by the inclusion of a young man’s fake suicide – a quiet moment that’s probably the most harrowing thing in the whole film. (more…)

07/10/2012 | Categories: News, Press reviews | Leave a comment

REVIEW ‘ZERO KILLED’ @ SOCYBERTY

by Spencer Hawken | Socyberty, Sept 29, 2012

A documentary filmmaker asks a group of people how they would like to kill someone, then allows them to live out that fantasy.

In 1996 filmmaker Michael Kosakowski started talking to people from different backgrounds about murder. He asked the people involved about if they were to murder someone, how they would do it? He offered the people involved the opportunity to carry out their wishes (obviously through acting), as long as they were the ones who performed the murders themselves. Ten years after carrying out the project, he returned to see those same people, to look at their murders, and ask them their views on the killings, and how they feel now, about their murders, and the society we live in.

Zero Killed is an intriguing documentary, with a variable sliding scale of depressive scenes and attitudes, to very light hearted moments, and hysterical “deaths”. Of course on a movie that focuses on death however, it is bound to be the more depressive points that dominate the agenda.

Kosakowski makes a very profound, but ultimately very true statement with his film. The movie is a very surreal experience; to hear the people involved discussing murder in the same way you may talk about going to the shops to buy a loaf of bread is a very sobering aspect. (more…)

07/10/2012 | Categories: News, Press reviews | Leave a comment