The first section of 'The Things You Kill' focuses on a literature professor named Ali, played by Ekin Koç.Mongrel Media
The Things You Kill
Written and directed by Alireza Khatami
Starring Ekin Koç, Erkan Kolçak Köstendil and Hazar Ergüçlü
Classification N/A; 113 minutes
Opens in Toronto and Montreal March 20
Critic’s Pick
There are a number of innovative and astounding shots nestled inside the new thriller The Things You Kill that demand instant access to a rewind button, just so you can figure out how director Alireza Khatami pulled them off.
Ideally, though, you’ll be watching the new feature from the Iranian-Canadian filmmaker inside the pitch-black darkness of a theatre, with no access to such a rewind feature. All the better to helplessly sink yourself into Khatami’s vision, which is at once baffling and engrossing. There is no way of knowing just how the movie’s many kill shots, so to speak, were technically assembled – only the satisfaction of knowing that it was made at all.
Divided into two distinct halves, the first section of The Things You Kill focuses on a literature professor named Ali (Ekin Koç), who is back teaching in a Turkish university after having spent years in the United States. An expert in translation, Ali’s own life seems to be one spoken in two tormented tongues: the lingua franca of his domineering father Hamit (Ercan Kesal), who rules his family with the raw power of patriarchy, and the more modern, progressive dialect required to speak with his younger, professional wife Hazar (Hazar Ergüçlü), who is desperate for a child.
Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Alireza Khatami is ready to have the hard conversations
This split is further intensified, to a startling degree, once a stranger named Reza (Erkan Kolçak Köstendil) enters Ali’s life, the two men embarking on a mission of revenge that turns what was a mild-mannered domestic drama into a surreal thriller with shades of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive.
To detail more of Ali’s journey would ruin the dark fun that Khatami is having with his audience. But it is no spoiler to say that the filmmaker knows just how to twist the knife, slicing his narrative up and down with the patience and expertise of a master butcher.
Khatami is just as sharp when it comes to keeping his cast lean and mean. As the slowly unravelling Ali, who ends up holding a number of secrets from his wife, Koç is a study in tightly coiled torment. And when the film’s ostensible hero is forced to confront Hamit with some particularly ugly truths, the two actors push a toxic father-son dynamic into deeply uncomfortable extremes.
Hazar Ergüçlü and Ekin Koç in 'The Things You Kill,' from Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Alireza Khatami.Mongrel Media
Originally set in Iran before it became clear that dealing with local censors would be an impossible game to win, Khatami takes great advantage of Ankara’s rural and urban landscapes, including several sequences that capture the grandeur and danger of the mountainous wilderness, where anyone can too easily lose themselves completely.
Submitted by Telefilm as Canada’s official submission for Best International Feature at this year’s Academy Awards, The Things You Kill – a co-production between Canada, France, Poland and Turkey – unfortunately didn’t make the short list. (Norway’s Sentimental Value ended up winning that category, which is a neat flip all its own given that director Joachim Trier’s easily assembled drama couldn’t be more diametrically opposed in its depiction and perspective of family dynamics.)
But The Things You Kill doesn’t need any Oscars honour to make its mark. In its bold aesthetic courage and rigid thematic spine, Khatami’s movie is a full-body experience that leaves you fully alive.
'The Things You Kill' is a full-body experience that leaves you fully alive, writes Barry Hertz.Mongrel Media