The Things You Kill

Watched at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Beautiful shot and well-explored, The Things You Kill is a great about the tale of revenge, human heart, soul, and human condition dynamics that shift throughout the landscapes. Filled with strong directing from Alireza Khatami, Khatami presents a well-explored study about faults, revenge and consequences for the characters which are provided with good dialogue and strong interesting engagements. Framing many of the beautiful shots of the environment, presentation, and atmosphere, it creates this unease and tenseful feeling that surroundings the characters and themes.

All of the performances are fantastic, the sound designs is good, and many of the decisions and atmosphere are both realistic, which captures what and how real revenge and the personality of people involved really works. All of the characters were interesting and there are some really good looking violent sequences that really sticks with the viewers affectively.

Some of the moments remain me quite a bit of David Lynch and Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Which is one fault I have with this movie because it does seem to take too much inspiration from it at times. Overall, Alireza Khatami is slowly becoming one of my favorite rising filmmakers out there.

In the West, films like this get showered with awards thanks to an endless, almost compulsive fascination with Orientalism. In such an insincere atmosphere, it becomes hard for viewers to tell which films genuinely deserve recognition.

I decided to stop caring about award ceremonies back in my teenage years. But Sundance has always held a different place in my heart.

Western audiences and critics watching Eastern cinema through subtitles can't really see the films from our perspective. Understandably, they miss the flaws.

The biggest issue with this film was the dialogue. It sounded like it was written in English and then run through Google Translate into Turkish.

The Polish cinematographer, perhaps influenced by the Iranian director, tried too hard to mimic Iranian cinema with every frame. It showed, and not always in a good way.

When an Iranian and a Polish filmmaker try to make a Turkish-language film in Turkey with Turkish actors, it inevitably leads to some serious mismatches. And yes, it shows.

Though I recently had lovely conversations with Ekin Koç, Erkan Kolçak Köstendil, Hazar Ergüçlü, and Ercan Kesal, and I really like all of them, credit where credit is due. Köstendil and Koç are the ones who carry the film on their shoulders.

After one of his concerts, I told Ekin, "You got two big reactions back-to-back from two indie films. What's next?" He smiled and said, "Bring on the next one. This is the fun part."

Koç is deeply in love with the craft. He doesn't care if he makes money off the projects he believes in. In fact, he even spends out of pocket. A remarkable actor and an incredibly talented musician. And once again, he gives everything he's got here.

The film swings between being a festival piece and a mainstream production. But despite a few hiccups, it manages to communicate a powerful idea to the audience.

Still, if I were on the Sundance jury, this wouldn't be my pick.

Alireza Khatami said the film was inspired by David Lynch. I won't comment on that. Because honestly, I'm not sure I can say anything about it without being mean.

As a Lynch cinema fan, this movie is simply brilliant. It is a slow burning suspense and psychological thriller that could bend your mind and make you want to rewatch the film since there are many metaphoric scenes or frames.

One can debate about Jung or Freudian aspect of dream interpretations of the story but if you just let it go and put yourself in Protagonist's shoes, you will definetly get lost and enjoy this cinematic experience.

Actings are okey. Directing is consistent. Framework is great but subtexts of the story are the real hero in this film. Stay away if you don't like slow burning psycological thriller genre and come and watch if you like independent cinema at its best.

My overall take away from the film, without diminishing Khatami's personal creative choices, is that The Things You Kill is an unintentional homage to David Lynch; the timing is incredible.

Khatami's film is about a married Turkish university professor named Ali and his family, all of whom experience a family event that sets Ali on a path of what he believes to be justified revenge. After a mid-point plot pivot, the genre redirects from revenge drama to thriller, where every emotion and immorality of the human heart and soul is tested.

The substance emanates from a relationship that Ali develops with a wandering stranger named Reza, who he engages to labor in his garden. Reza, without much resistance, agrees to embark on Ali's plan for revenge. The ensuing plunge into depravity is initially filmed in obfuscating darkness, which dials up the Lynchian tenor of the film.

The shooting choices made by Khatami and his DP Bartosz Swiniarski are key to giving the screenplay the depth of a novel with credible characters, as in the frequent slow "pushing in moments" with characters perfectly framed by a door, a window, or an arch, until the mis-en-scene frames are no longer necessary. Swiniarski uses lenses that go in and out of focus, the latter suggesting a dream state - a recurring leitmotif.

There will be much discussion about how this film explores identity and sense of self, and there are abundant moments of soul searching and probing - especially consider that the main character is named Ali and the gardener cohort is named Reza - and amalgamation of the director's name.