Final Rating: 4/5
Family secrets bubble to the surface as an English teacher in Turkey wrestles with the untimely passing of his mother. Alireza Khatami’s The Things You Kill challenges viewers from the beginning as its intricate themes of self and family weave in and out of each other.
The film revolves around Ali, the aforementioned English teacher played tenderly by Ekin Koç. His journey takes three paths: one as a husband, one as a son, and one as a man. These roads start out separate, but converge like a tidal wave crashing onto the beach. Ali’s teaching position is in jeopardy. He and his wife Hazar (Hazar Ergüçlü) are hoping to conceive. His relationship with his mother (Güliz Şirinyan), who he takes a lot of time to check in on, is strained by the attitude of his father (Ercan Kesal).
Ali is a scared man. He’s afraid to share with his wife the results of his fertility test, lest it reveal to her how inadequate he feels about himself. While relatively less time is paid to Ali’s relationship with Hazar than other parts of the film, it nonetheless hammers home how little control he has over his life. He’s hiding from his own wife.
The only place Ali finds any semblance of confidence is when he is teaching. When he catches a student playing on her phone in his class, he chastises her in front of everyone, a side of him that doesn’t come out anywhere else.
He’s concerned for his mother’s well-being, frequently visiting her to make sure she’s doing well. Ali argues with his father about how best to take care of his mother and admonishes him for not doing more for her. When Ali points out a fault in their plumbing, his father shakes his head and tells him the pipes are fine. Then his mother suddenly passes away in the middle of the night. It causes Ali to shrink a little further.
Teaching, family, and other areas in Ali’s life are placed on the backburner after his mother dies. When he’s told by his sister Nesrin (Selen Kurtaran) about a time when their father beat their mother and she could only watch, he begins to investigate the circumstances of her death in earnest. Why, if she fell down the stairs and cracked the back of her head, was she found face down? Why did their father have bandages wrapped around one of his hands?
Ali starts spending a lot more time tending his garden, a hobby he has a great fondness for. He hires a man named Reza (Erkan Kolçak Köstendil) to assist him, even though he probably can’t afford it. He begins to confide in Reza about his life, thoughts, and feelings. Ali admires attributes in the rugged Reza that he wishes were part of his own identity.
Halfway through The Things We Kill, the story hits an inflection point. Having reached a conclusion on his own about the circumstances of his mother’s death, Ali decides to ask for Reza’s help in disposing of his father. He isn’t strong enough to carry out an action like that for himself, but certainly a stronger man like Reza could.
For another filmmaker, that might be the crucial scene of the film’s third act–Ali’s desired hubris manifesting itself in such a violent way. But Khatami, who served as writer, director, and co-editor, has a lot more to say. He draws parallels between the traits Ali wishes he had and those that he condemns in his father. He turns the camera inward, almost literally, and has Ali confront why he cares about his cowardice.
The symbolism of mirrors haunts the entire film. Khatami’s cinematographer, Bartosz Świniarski, starts things off simply with a well-staged exchange between Ali and Hazar where Hazar is shown in the reflection of a large mirror hanging in their home. Later in the film, there’s a mirror transition as good as any ever put on screen. It’s beautiful to watch and it further examines the way that Ali views himself. When Ali looks in the mirror, it would come as no surprise to learn that he feels ashamed of what he sees staring back.
At the heart of the film, the question asked of Ali is whether or not he’ll conjure the strength to accept the person he is, and the way that he is. The primary conceit surrounding that question is presented without acknowledgement and could lead to some confusion for those not paying close enough attention. Khatami’s trust in his audience is mostly well-placed. As he unwraps layers of grief and masculinity around Ali’s character, there are small pieces that fall through the cracks and feel unexplained or underexplored. However, the brunt of this character study is successful.
The Things We Kill is ambitious in its storytelling and dynamic in its cinematography. The actors are committed and the vision that Alireza Khatami has for this story is unflinching. While the film certainly has choices that are rough around the edges, Ali’s journey unfolds in captivating fashion.
Thank you to The PR Factory for the screener.
