Film: The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Absurdist Yorgos Lanthimos continues to surprise us with uncomfortable, funny, and bizarre cinema. He is following up Dogtooth and The Lobster with The Killing of a Sacred Deer: the merciless devastation of a heart surgeon’s perfect family.

Yorgos Lanthimos developed a strong cult following thanks to the unconventional films Alps and i, but the Greek’s breakthrough came with his first English-language film: The Lobster. In the anti-totalitarian, absurdist satire, Colin Farrell played a lethargic bourgeois who will be changed into an animal if he doesn’t find a wife quickly enough.

The Irish actor has returned for a role in The Killing of a Sacred Deer. He plays a rich heart surgeon with a seemingly perfect family, led by Nicole Kidman at her ice-queenliest. Both at home and at the hospital, there is not a pin out of place or the tiniest speck of dust on the floor. The extremely sterile environment and the sterile style of communication and love-making are a source of discomfort and entertainment. But the laughter (if you like jet-black comedy at least) starts to fade near the end, when this film starts to stifle and horrify you.

The ex-alcoholic heart surgeon clashes with a teenager who claims to be his child. Despite all his wealth, power, and scientific knowledge, the doctor is as powerless as all those who provoke the wrath of the gods in Greek myths. Lanthimos claims that the script was almost finished by the time he realized its similarities with the tragedy of Iphigenia, the daughter that King Agamemnon had to sacrifice after killing one of goddess Artemis’s favourite deer.

The effective, glacial cinematography and the music are reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick. Unless you dislike the bizarre, there is not a single moment when you know what to think of The Killing of a Sacred Deer, but you are challenged to think nonetheless, and to keep watching. And that is no punishment from the gods but a gift from the exceptional Lanthimos.

> The Killing of a Sacred Deer. UK, dir.: Yorgos Lanthimos, act.: Nicole Kidman, Colin Farrell, Barry Keoghan