DIRECTOR: Alireza Khatami
STARRING: Ekin Koc, Erkan Kolcak Kostendil, Hazar Erguclu,
RUNNING TIME: 1 hr 53 minutes
LANGUAGE: Turkish, English
PLOT: Haunted by the mysterious death of his ailing mother, university professor Ali pressures his enigmatic gardener into carrying out a chilling act of vengeance. As long-buried family secrets resurface and the police close in, his conscience begins to unravel, forcing Ali to confront the dark abyss within his own soul.
GENRE: Drama
FILMING LOCATION: Ankara, Turkey
To check out all previous submissions for Canada, click HERE.
STARRING: Ekin Koc, Erkan Kolcak Kostendil, Hazar Erguclu,
RUNNING TIME: 1 hr 53 minutes
LANGUAGE: Turkish, English
PLOT: Haunted by the mysterious death of his ailing mother, university professor Ali pressures his enigmatic gardener into carrying out a chilling act of vengeance. As long-buried family secrets resurface and the police close in, his conscience begins to unravel, forcing Ali to confront the dark abyss within his own soul.
GENRE: Drama
FILMING LOCATION: Ankara, Turkey
To check out all previous submissions for Canada, click HERE.
FILM REVIEW:
(This review contains spoilers.)
“Maybe the text becomes the scene of the crime."
Alireza Khatami’s The Things You Kill is a brooding psychological thriller that delves into the corrosive effects of grief, vengeance, and buried family secrets. The film follows Ali, a university professor tormented by the suspicious death of his ailing mother, who coerces his enigmatic gardener into executing an act of revenge. As the plot unfolds, Khatami skillfully blends noir sensibilities with poetic visuals, creating a chilling atmosphere where every shadow and silence carries unspoken meaning. The narrative is tightly woven, slowly unraveling layers of guilt and complicity, pulling the viewer deeper into Ali’s fractured world.
Visually, the film is striking, with cinematography that contrasts the sterile, academic environment of Ali’s professional life against the raw, earthy spaces inhabited by his gardener. Khatami uses these visual juxtapositions to highlight the divide between privilege and servitude, intellect and instinct, repression and release. The camera often lingers on faces, hands, and mundane gestures, amplifying the sense of unease while grounding the story in the human body as both vessel of pain and tool of violence. The pacing is deliberate, allowing the tension to mount gradually until it becomes almost unbearable.
The performances anchor the film with remarkable intensity. The actor portraying Ali imbues him with a fragile arrogance, an intellectual who wields words and authority yet crumbles when forced to confront his own powerlessness. The gardener, in contrast, remains enigmatic and unsettling, his silence holding more weight than any dialogue. Their dynamic is both master-servant and mirror image, with each man reflecting the other’s suppressed rage and vulnerability.
Ultimately, The Things You Kill is not just a thriller about vengeance but a meditation on how grief corrodes morality. Khatami poses haunting questions: when justice feels absent, do we become monsters by creating our own? The film’s central point lies in exposing the destructive nature of unresolved loss, how pain, when left to fester, drives us to harm others and ourselves. In Ali’s downfall, Khatami reminds us that the things we kill are not only people or relationships, but also our own capacity for redemption.
(This review contains spoilers.)
“Maybe the text becomes the scene of the crime."
Alireza Khatami’s The Things You Kill is a brooding psychological thriller that delves into the corrosive effects of grief, vengeance, and buried family secrets. The film follows Ali, a university professor tormented by the suspicious death of his ailing mother, who coerces his enigmatic gardener into executing an act of revenge. As the plot unfolds, Khatami skillfully blends noir sensibilities with poetic visuals, creating a chilling atmosphere where every shadow and silence carries unspoken meaning. The narrative is tightly woven, slowly unraveling layers of guilt and complicity, pulling the viewer deeper into Ali’s fractured world.
Visually, the film is striking, with cinematography that contrasts the sterile, academic environment of Ali’s professional life against the raw, earthy spaces inhabited by his gardener. Khatami uses these visual juxtapositions to highlight the divide between privilege and servitude, intellect and instinct, repression and release. The camera often lingers on faces, hands, and mundane gestures, amplifying the sense of unease while grounding the story in the human body as both vessel of pain and tool of violence. The pacing is deliberate, allowing the tension to mount gradually until it becomes almost unbearable.
The performances anchor the film with remarkable intensity. The actor portraying Ali imbues him with a fragile arrogance, an intellectual who wields words and authority yet crumbles when forced to confront his own powerlessness. The gardener, in contrast, remains enigmatic and unsettling, his silence holding more weight than any dialogue. Their dynamic is both master-servant and mirror image, with each man reflecting the other’s suppressed rage and vulnerability.
Ultimately, The Things You Kill is not just a thriller about vengeance but a meditation on how grief corrodes morality. Khatami poses haunting questions: when justice feels absent, do we become monsters by creating our own? The film’s central point lies in exposing the destructive nature of unresolved loss, how pain, when left to fester, drives us to harm others and ourselves. In Ali’s downfall, Khatami reminds us that the things we kill are not only people or relationships, but also our own capacity for redemption.
