The Things You Kill

Oldurdugun Seyler

VERDICT: More a psychological study than a thriller, ‘The Things You Kill’ explores the corruption and internalized violence of a patriarchal society, spiced with some bold narrative tricks from Alireza Khatami, co-director of the Iranian festival hit 'Terrestrial Verses'.

The Things You Kill (Oldurdugun Seyler) skis into Sundance in the memorable  tracks of Alireza Khatami’s previous feature codirected with Ali Asgari, Terrestrial Verses, an acidic black comedy about the mistreatment of ordinary Iranians by a powerful and sadistic bureaucracy that permeates every area of private life. His new film, set in Turkey and written and directed solo, has quite a different tone and message. Coproduced by France, Canada, Poland and Turkey, this rather airy, intellectual drama with psychoanalytic overtones has a polished festival/art house feel that will keep it in circulation after its Park City bow.

Viewers should not be put off by its unadventurous, low-key opening, as some major surprises are in store in the second half. But despite these welcome twists, this is a far cry from the originality of the director’s Iranian work. Still, as social commentary, The Things You Kill dives deeper and cuts sharper, asserting that there is a violent, even murderous patriarchy lurking inside the most modern-looking of young men, which haunts the mind and emerges in supernatural form.

There’s a lot to explain about the conflicted hero Ali (played by a mood-switching Ekin Koc, the star of Burning Days), an American-trained college lecturer with multiple family problems. In an early scene that takes place in what is always referred to as “Dad’s house”, he dotes on his chronically ill mother and is at permanent odds with his angry, rough-spoken father, who scornfully treats both wife and son like he owns them. Back in Ali’s own modern, tastefully appointed apartment, a shadowy bedroom scene leads to the discovery that he can’t get his wife Hazar (Hazar Erguclu) pregnant, a difficulty that is scientifically confirmed by his doctor as low sperm count. Instead of talking it over with Hazar, he decides to keep this upsetting, potentially emasculating information to himself and brood.

Production designer Meral Aktan’s third major set is “the garden” where Ali plants trees in a bone-dry valley as a hobby, and where his wooden cabin and doghouse disfigure a dazzling mountain range. Originally the garden functions as a retreat into nature for the overburdened Lit teacher, but as the story goes on, it becomes the site of an alarming transformation. Skirting the edges of psychological horror, a doppelganger theme emerges out of nowhere that shakes up a standard revenge-themed narrative with crime-and-self-punishment overtones. But after a night on the mountain digging graves, Ali’s life turns into a very different story.

It all begins when one of his three sisters, who remained close to his parents while he spent 14 years abroad, reveals she once saw Dad punch their mother on the head so hard she lost consciousness. When the ailing woman actually dies under suspicious circumstances, Ali suspects his father may have murdered her to get her out of the way for a new love. The only person to whom he confides his torments is a wandering laborer named Reza (Erkan Kolcak Kostendil), who looks a bit like Ali, and who gets a job as a gardener and handyman around the garden.

There’s a lot on the fire here, and some ideas seem tossed out without landing anywhere. One of these is the interest a girl student shows in Ali, a dawning, unhealthy relationship that goes nowhere. Another is a deeply personal confession he makes to a brusque department head at the university about how, as a young boy, he fearfully fought off the unwanted advances of an older boy; this bit of buried backstory is left pitifully dangling.

But in a finale invaded with ghosts and dreams, co-editors Khatami and Selda Taskin do a nice job tying up many of the plot threads with a touch of poetry, one that is moodily echoed in the darkening photography of DP Bartosz Swiniarski. All told, it’s a film that improves as it goes along, taking enough narrative risks to be intriguing and backed by a solid cast all around.

Director, screenwriter: Alireza Khatami
Producers: Elisa Sepulveda Ruddoff, Cyriac Auriol, Mariusz Wlodarski, Alireza Khatami, Michael Soloman
Cast:  Ekin Koc, Erkan Kolcak Kostendil, Hazar Erguclu, Ercan Kesal, Guliz Sirinyan, Aysan Sumercan Olmez, Serhat Nalbantoglu, Selen Kurtaran
Cinematography: Bartosz Swiniarski PSC
Production design: Meral Aktan
Editing: Alireza Khatami, Selda Taskin
Sound recorder: Benjamin Laurent
Sound design: Ange Hubert
Production companies: Fulgurance & Remora Films in coproduction with Lava Films, Tell Tall Tale, Band with Pictures, Sinektif in association with Desmar, Best Friend Forever, Le Pacte, Poyraz Film
World sales: Best Friend Forever
Venue: Sundance Film Festival (World Cinema Dramatic Competition )
In Turkish
114  minutes