Essential Killing

Polish writer-director Jerzy Skolimowski offers a commentary on the War on Terror in the form of a survival story set in the wintry east European countryside. The protagonist is Mohammed (Vincent Gallo), a Taliban fighter captured in Afghanistan by American commandos after he kills several soldiers. Mohammed is subjected to brutal interrogation—including waterboarding—before being transported to Poland for confinement; but en route the prison vehicle crashes and he dashes to freedom. What follows is an episodic account of his encounters with pursuers (killing one for warmer clothing) and locals (including a nursing mother whom he uses as a source of nourishment in a scene that some will find deeply unsettling). Finally, he receives some assistance from a woman named Margaret (Emmanuelle Seigner), who lives in an isolated shack and also seems to be an outcast. One has to admire Gallo (who truly looks like he's suffering from the cold and lack of food and sleep), as well as the skill with which Skolimowski and cinematographer Adam Sikora employ locations—both the initial desert scenes and the chilly Polish countryside—to create a sense of vastness that is nonetheless paradoxically confining. But ultimately Essential Killing is little more than a repetitive reflection on the fact that people will do anything to survive—whether committing a captured enemy to inhumane treatment or eliminating those who stand in the way of escape. An optional purchase. (F. Swietek)