The Things You Kill: An Anatolian Shining (Critique)
A Turkish teacher sinks into paranoia after the suspicious death of his mother. Khatami signs an icing psychological thriller on male violence.
We enter this Turkish film as in a trap. A trap that is slowly closing. Ali is a thirty -year -old literature teacher. He teaches Western classics to jaded students when it all starts to disintegrate around him. His wife wants a child he cannot give him, his father openly despises him, his grabatory mother claims constant care. It is the beginning of a vertiginous mental odyssey that Alireza Khatami orchestra with the precision of a evil watchmaker. If the director of Chronicles of Tehran Moves the action of this film from Iran to Turkey to dodge censorship, its words remain intact: dissect the cogs of patriarchal violence. When Ali’s mother dies in suspicious circumstances, the autopsy reveals a head trauma incompatible with a fall. The violent father becomes a number one suspect, and Ali rocks in a quest that actually looks like wild therapy.
Visually, it’s Kiarostami reviewed by Lynch. The image blurred and refocals, the camera pitch as after a laborious awakening and each gesture takes on surrealist meaning. Khatami and his chief OP Bartosz Swiniarski sculpt the hero’s existential anxiety in each setting. Until the moment when an enigmatic gardener arrives in Ali’s life and will upset the situation. There, The Things You Kill Vire with alert nightmare. Basically, what Khatami features is a (disturbing) reflection on the toxic transmission of masculinity. He borrows from art cinema and essay his formal codes while questioning his cultural heritage. It’s chilling and spectacular, Turkish cinema holds its Shining Anatolian.
Of Alireza Khatami with Ekin Koç, Hazar Ergüçlü, Ercan Kesal … Duration 1h53. Release on July 23, 2025
