#83: The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Release Date: October 20th, 2017

Format: Streaming (Max)

Written by: Efthimis Filippou and Yorgos Lanthimos

Directed by: Yorgos Lanthimos

3 Stars

“It’s metaphorical. My example, it’s a metaphor. I mean, it’s uh…it’s symbolic.”

In The Killing of a Sacred Deer, 16-year-old Martin, bloodied and duct taped to a chair in a basement, utters this revealing statement to Dr. Steven Murphy, whose two children are dying of some sort of curse that Martin has put on them. Apparently, according to Martin, the curse can only be stopped if Steven kills a member of his own family. This will spare the remaining child. If he does nothing, both children will die. And like I said, according to Martin, the curse is symbolic. Symbolic of what? Well, a few years earlier Steven performed surgery on Martin’s father, who died on the operating table. We learn later that Steven is a recovering alcoholic and had been drinking the morning of the operation. I suppose the curse is symbolic of some sort of eye-for-an-eye, Old Testament-style justice. We’re never told how Martin is able to place this curse on the children, or how he has supernatural powers.

But even the need for an explanation pre-supposes that the film exists in any sort of reality. It does not. This is not a literal film. This is a cold allegorical slab of meat placed before us. Although the tone of the film is clinical, you’ll need to get a little bloody if you want to enjoy this thing. 

The bigger metaphor - not Martin’s metaphor of justice, but the film’s metaphor - is, I think, alcoholism. Is Martin the disease? As the film progresses, Martin’s menace and the children’s symptoms worsen, and Steven has absolutely no control over what is happening. His familial life and his professional life are falling apart. The metaphor works for me.

How well the film works is a matter of taste. There is an amateurish, affectless quality to the acting that is strange and unnerving. The dialogue is wooden. The characters behave unnaturally and relate to each other in unnatural ways. For example, Martin and Steven’s teenage daughter speak coldly about how Martin’s body hair compares to Steven’s. Later in the film, Martin and Steven also speak about body hair, and Steven patiently explains to Martin that his body hair will increase with age and hormones.

It’s some weird shit.

Also, Steven and his wife, Anna, have a sexual arrangement where she lies completely motionless on the bed (apparently mimicking a state of sedation), which is what Steven needs to be aroused. I’m not sure how the characteristics of their marriage and sex life fit the extended metaphor of alcoholism, but it surely lends to the inhuman tone of the movie.

That cold, inhuman, clinical texture pervades the film, and you’re either going to find it intriguing or obtuse. But definitely metaphorical.