Yahoo Lifestyle David Lynch Meets Abbas Kiarostami in Sundance Thriller ‘The Things You Kill,’ Says Director Alireza Khatami
Premiering out Sundance’s world dramatic competition ahead of subsequent play in Rotterdam, “The Things You Kill” marks Iranian auteur Alireza Khatami’s most personal and outré work to date.
Led by Turkish stars Ekin Koç (“Burning Days”), Erkan Kolçakköstendil (“Familya,” “Magnificent Century: Kosem”), Hazar Ergüçlü (“The Protector”) and Ercan Kesal (“Once Upon a Time in Anatolia,” “The Three Monkeys”) the film follows a 40ish professor whose life — and sense of self — begins to unravel following the suspicious death of his mother. Murkiness gives way to something altogether darker once the lead finds himself isolated and fragile in a system that offers men few healthy outlets for those emotions.
More from Variety
“We often talk about what the patriarchy does to a woman,” says Khatami. “But it also subjects men to forms of extreme violence, causing them to disintegrate in the process.”
Best Friends Forever is handling world sales.
How did you conceive this film?
From the start, the film was set up as a psychological thriller grounded in an art-house approach very much inspired by David Lynch. I’m heartbroken about his recent passing, because I discovered his work as I was falling in love with cinema. Filmmakers from outside of Europe or America aren’t always encouraged to make such strong formal choices, so I was very much in awe of Lynch’s style.
He found new ways to explore his characters’ inner lives that took me years to understand, digest, and then make that my own. When my first film came out, someone wrote, “It’s like Kiarostami took ecstasy.” And then someone who saw this film during post-production told me, “This is David Lynch if he was ever sober.”
You’re also working in more self-revealing register than in your previous two features.
I wanted explore my personal pain through those formal ambitions, and so I very much played with autofiction, to the extent that I don’t even know how to show this to my family because 70% of it is based on shared experiences. While I didn’t go to the extremes depicted in the film, the story draws heavily from my life. This is the first time I’m opening myself up this way, and have no idea how I’m going to stand in front of an audience and introduce the film. Recently, somebody complimented this or that line of dialogue, and told them that I didn’t write it — I just remembered it.
The film takes a lot of formal pivots, beginning as something more straightforward before veering off.
As a cinephile, form is very important to me. I wanted to start with what the audience expects from a “brown filmmaker”—to walk them in slowly thinking, oh, I know this movie, oh this looks like Faradi, this reminds me of so and so. But halfway through, I lead them into uncharted territory. My goal was to subvert their expectations and show them something unexpected. That’s why the first half is a bit of a Trojan horse, easing the audience in until it’s too late to back off.
Of course, you’re equally oblique when the violence does arrive.
It’s very easy to show a brain splattering — only doing so actually takes away the horror. When you don’t show it, when you distance the audience and don’t let them have that catharsis, that’s when violence becomes truly impactful.
I’d rather focus on the psychological impact. This film is almost like a prologue to a zombie movie — showing the world collapsing around the protagonist before the apocalypse begins. So I hope it lingers. You know, when audiences leave the theater, I don’t want them to just say, “Oh, that was a nice.” I want it to crawl under their skin and live there, quietly, like a whisper. The best art doesn’t give you everything immediately — it plants seeds that slowly grow. If someone watches this and feels unsettled, unsure, or haunted, then I’ve done my job.
What did the Turkish landscapes bring to the mix?
I wrote the locations in detail, and then we searched extensively, traveling all over Turkey to find the right angles. Finding the right spots took months, but in the end, the landscapes of Anatolia play a crucial role here. Historically, inward journeys in cinema are depicted in dark, confined spaces, and I wanted to reverse that—to place [the protagonist] Ali in vast, quiet landscapes, away from everyone. The film has no music to avoid emotional manipulation; instead, it’s layered with sounds, and with Anatolia’s beauty and stillness.
How does this idea of exile play into the narrative?
Any person, anywhere in the world can feel exiled in some way. The concept of home here is more philosophical. Ali is a translator, constantly thinking through language and the world. He sees himself as someone who’s aware of the patriarchal system, thinking, “I cook, I wash dishes, so I’m not one of them. I’m a feminist. I’ve done my homework, right?” But then he realizes, “Holy fuck, I’m in it up to my neck. I’m part of this.” The father isn’t just an external figure — it’s something inside him that he’s never truly confronted. The film is about this realization. In a way, he thought he was home, but he finds himself in a foreign land.
How else does the film try to subvert expectations?
There’s a constant expectation of making politically charged films about Muslim women struggling with sexuality or men against oppressive regimes, as if there’s nothing else worth exploring. I wanted to challenge this orientalist approach and prove that we can tell diverse stories that transcend politics. Working with European festivals and funding bodies often means pushing back against their expectations. For example, a film by a Brazilian director is labeled “a Brazilian look at adolescence,” while the same story by a Belgian is just “a look at adolescence.” It’s frustrating and disheartening. We’re not subcategories of humanity — we’re artists, philosophers, and storytellers. The world is changing, and this outdated mindset must end.
Best of Variety
Sign up for Variety's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
