The Face of Time - POV - Aarhus Universitet

98 p.o.v. number 13 March 2002
speaking of the ethical relation with the Other, Levinas uses terms
like "infinity", "enigma" or "obsession". It seems to me that these
terms also describe quite well the disturbing effect created by Wind.
The film's "indifference" towards the hanging, its refusal to give
any psychological or political explanation to what is happening,
creates precisely that kind of disturbing effect that Levinas sees in
the ethical relation. The killing is laid bare as nothing else but killing
pure and simple. The people are seen not as representatives of some
political movement that might in some way legitimize or explain
what they are doing. They are simply people killing and being
killed. Who they are and what their motives are remains an open
question, an enigma. The question of the film, instead of dying
when the "answer" is reached, is revived and stays alive long after
the film has ended. Like the Face that speaks the words "Thou shalt
not kill," Wind leaves us obsessed with the question without an
answer, the enigma of the Other.