Director Yorgos Lanthimos
THE KILLING OF A SACRED
DEER D
Ireland Great Britain (121
mi) 2017 d: Yorgos Lanthimos
Arguably the worst film seen all year, arriving in theaters
with a dull thud, lifeless and humorless throughout, with a cruel streak that
couldn’t get any uglier, where one is willing to sit through this drudgery with
the hope that there will be a last minute twist that somehow puts this in a
different light, but that moment never comes. Incredibly the writers,
Efthymis Filippou and the director Yorgos Lanthimos, shared the best screenplay
award at Cannes with Lynne Ramsay’s YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE, which seems
like a ludicrous choice after seeing the film, especially since so many
screenwriter accolades were already handed out to his previous film, 2016 Top
Ten List #9 The Lobster, which thoroughly deserved the awards for humor and
originality. This film has none of that, but simply feels like two
hours of detestable unpleasantry that goes absolutely nowhere. Don’t
believe the overhyped superlatives, as this film should have been called out
for what it is at the outset, which is a complete waste of time, yet instead it
is awarded with one of the coveted prizes at the most prestigious film festival
in the world. Figure that one out. Lately Cannes has had
a history of making controversial poor choices, but this one tops the
list. "Movie
filmed in Cincinnati booed at Cannes". While this practice
is not new, awarding accolades for such incredibly downbeat material
is. This is not an inspiring film and deserves to be walked out on
in droves, which sometimes is the only way to send a message. As
described by Michael Sragow of Film Comment, Deep
Focus: The Killing of a Sacred Deer - Film Comment:
Lanthimos’s mode of riffing in a
stiff, oracular manner can seem compelling and oddly funny, at least for a
half-hour or so, even to skeptics like myself. Then we find ourselves following
the four stages of aesthetic grief: denial (“No one, deep down, can take this
seriously”); anger (“How dare he stoop to killing off the dog just to provoke
us!”); bargaining (“If we regard this film as ‘pure cinema,’ it must get
better”); and, finally, depression (“No, it doesn’t get any better”). Happily,
for aesthetic grief, as opposed to grief, a fifth stage, “acceptance,” isn’t a
necessity. We can always walk out of the theater.
For all practical purposes, that is the best recommendation,
as this feels like a zombie movie without the zombies. Someone
forgot to make this interesting. As is, this is a joyless piece of
anti-theater, with insipidly dull and emotionally inert characters speaking to
one another with no emotional inflection whatsoever, so it comes across as
intentionally deadpan. However, whatever humor is to be found at the
outset simply by the absurdity of what we are seeing dissipates over time,
making the film something of a disaster in the making, as there is no reward
for having to sit through this. Unlike early Warhol films,
especially his films of duration, like SLEEP (1964) or EMPIRE (1965), which
surprisingly offer a social commentary, the question always becomes, at what
point do viewers develop the fortitude to walk out, as there is no reward for
enduring images where nothing happens. After a certain period of
time, you get the point. Whatever may be the original intent here is
undermined by the film’s own twisted pathology, becoming a warped and darkly
disturbing attempt to satirize an emasculated idealization of the suburban
dream, sucking the life right out of you, where all that’s left is a pervading
sense of powerlessness, and a futility to struggle against it. While
one supposes there is an entertainment factor to see how issues develop and
resolve themselves, yet this film offers no rewards afterwards. It’s
not like we ever learn anything or gain any insight. Instead we’re
left with a sick fever dream from which there is no escape. In the
life of a successful middle-class physician (Colin Farrell), a single event
alters his life, as he loses a patient on the operating
table. Strangely and mysteriously, the physician meets secretly with
what appears to be a mentally unstable boy (Barry Keoghan), a kid with no
redeeming qualities whatsoever, the kind of person you’d walk away from the
first chance you get. But the doctor invests time and patience, as
we learn his father is the one who dies on the operating table, with this kid
exacting revenge, claiming members of the doctor’s family will meet the same
fate. One by one they will fall ill, their bodies failing
them, until eventually they shut down and die. All this is explained
very matter of factly.
Like some Twilight Zone episode, viewers
may attribute supernatural powers to this thoroughly detestable kid, but
nothing is mentioned in the film, so whatever viewers imagine likely comes from
their own imaginations, as it’s not in the storyline. Little by
little things get worse and worse, as first one kid and then the next succumbs
to undiagnosed ailments that can’t be explained, despite thorough examinations
from the best minds of the country. For a physician, whose arrogance
has no bounds, educated in science and logic, and his ice-princess wife (Nicole
Kidman), living the supposed perfect suburban life, this is more than they can
stand, with the doctor browbeating his own kids in an attempt to usurp whatever
power controls them. Again, all of this is done without an ounce of
emotion from the kid, though the doctor loses it from time to time, acting on
anger impulse, doing his best Charles Bronson imitation, but his threats fall
on deaf ears. The kid has sinister powers. The dilemma
is, if you just go ahead and get rid of the kid, then your own kids are already
on a similar path, with no resolution, leaving you in a tough
spot. Doing nothing means everyone except the doctor himself
dies. However, if the doctor takes the life of one of his own kids,
that would suffice. These are the rules of the game. In
the film, having no other choice, everyone plays along, sucking up to this
monster, resorting to all manner of horrid human behavior. Somehow,
someway, viewers wonder if there will be an unexpected twist that swoops in and
alters the endlessly bleak landscape. Don’t hold your
breath. The question is whether anything profound may be drawn from
this work, and whether putting the audience through the wringer of a torture
chamber is the best way to unravel some essential truths. On both
counts, the film thoroughly disappoints. Initial thoughts that come
to mind is this could be an extension of the kid in Lynn Ramsey’s We
Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), taking it even further, adding a
supernatural element, while another variation is offering a contemporary
setting for the Biblical story of Abraham who is instructed by God to kill his
only son, Isaac, like sacrificing a lamb. Only when God can see that
Abraham intends to obey him, binding his child and raising a knife to his
throat, does he rescind his order, satisfied that Abraham has faith, allowing
both to live. In the Lanthimos version, there is no God and there is
no justice. Only a heartlessly futile existence.
