Review of The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) by Pipec — 05 May 2018

Do you play God or Devil? Beyond the story about lost, vengeance and repulsion that he sets up, what makes Lanthimos so unique and aggressive is his power to relate poetically atrocious fables, a type of narration that is far, far from the prototype used by cinema currently. He already did so with his previous film and now backs it up with "The Killing of a Sacred Deer", dangerous ideas and perspectives without anesthesia embellished with peculiar breakdowns on lies, justice, forgiveness and hard feelings; rubbing salt in the wound of many conservative moviegoers who describe this type of cinematographic approach as ostentatious, ambitious and shamefully voyeuristic. The story veers completely over a psychological, captivating and supernatural air and many movie lovers appreciate that, we really do. Suggesting subtly that everything shown on screen isn't explicitly all they want to say is a tool for the audience, who must start, on its own, a quick but much deeper study of the connections between the pictures, questioning each line getting out of the mouth of any character, every decision, every distraction, a game in which the spectator must be more clever. Along with "mother!" by Darren Aronofsky, "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" has one of the craziest, most symbolic and visceral scripts, in the bad and good sense of all the words, of the last decade, guaranteed stupefaction. The screenplay, written by the director alongside his habitual co-writer Efthymis Filippou, is overwhelming; from the opening scene, there are signs warning of an abrasive, variegated in-crescendo trip that gradually, as if it was an uncontrollable beast, increases in strength and belligerence to devour what could have been a tasteless drama. This kind of thing makes more interesting the stories in which no one knows what the hell just happened, that fictional game in which the writers immerse us whether we like or not. Don't forget the superb, staggered build of tension and discomfort, because in fact, the story is not made up of efficient twists and clever moves placed in the right moments, but the story itself is a big, insane twist. Certain elements are required for something like this goes well, fortunately, they're used on this occasion: top-notch performances, an antiseptic cinematography, a lancinating soundtrack and an infinity of technical, artistic and narrative support that become this work, only for a few ones, in one of the best of the year.

Here is one of the few films in which the majority, if not all, of the performances are magnificent and strangely credible. Farrell does an outstanding job in this movie, his movie, we feel true anger, his bewilderment and dread are real through his steely gaze, and unlike many other similar-storyline characters, he's a defenseless father contemplating how his family crumbles, one by one, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Of course, the next big revelation is one of the most terrifying and ominously disturbing antagonists of this year: Barry Keoghan. The 25-year-old actor has found a very complex character, full of nuances represented by means of monologues that he verbalizes in a way as natural as disturbing, the coldness of his boiling hate is what turns his interpretation into a fabulous triumph, there are sincerity and depth in his words, is such the power of his dramatic range that with just a couple of lines and one "loathsome" plate of spaghetti petrifies an entire theater, a visceral performance. Thimios Bakatakis' barbaric visual section must live up to the brutality and strangeness of the enigmatic writing, frankly, it goes significantly beyond. The cinematographer spreads the messages out through a thin and aggressive line of symbolic pictures, from the most deeply dramatic to those blatantly violent; the camera slithers harshly along hospitals, onerous houses, coffee shops and disturbing basements, using long shots to feed the unstoppable tension through tilt and travelling moves that accompany the characters all the time, even making the viewer to hide behind a shield in every moment, it's restless and frightened of what may come as soon as a change of scene happens. Upsetting, exultantly cruel and incredibly hard to watch and forget, Yorgos Lanthimos's "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" is his film less chimeric in terms of visual setting, however, the stark and eccentric display of his ideas and the deep-rooted metaphorical meaning of them are pillars in this rabid tale of karma, morality, vengeance, and humility, smothering the spectator' tolerance limits, causing dissimilar results in each experience, in my case, a da*n obsession to know more about this unclassifiable Greek filmmaker. Quickly, the filmmaker shapes his filmography on metaphorical bases, with esoteric and complex ideas that define a caustically indelible work. No doubt, the second film, narrative and visually, more controversial, perverse and atrocious of 2017.