Almost eight years ago the names of Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Philippo were a complete unknown in the film world. Their first joint collaboration, Dogtooth, was the absolute discovery of 2009, and at the same time greatly accepted by audiences and critics. The film won two awards in Cannes and was nominated for the Oscars in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
After their first English film The Lobster, two years ago, everyone was convinced that they knew the work of this duo who won three awards in Cannes and two EFA awards. However, their latest, fourth joint project, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, proves that Filippou and Lanthimos are just warming up and suggest that in the future they could present us even darker, surreal drama with a blubber of black humor.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer could be described as Euripides' Iphigenia encounter with Haneke's thriller Funny Games, done by Kubrick's audio-visual enthusiasm. The film opens with disturbing extreme close-up of the open chest, and the pulsating heart over which the operation is performed while the section "Jesus Christus Schwedt am Kreuze" of Schubert's "Stabat Mater in F minor" is freezing blood in the veins.
Then we look at the figure in a white coat walking through an infinitely long illuminated corridor. It's Dr. Stephen Murphy (Colin Farrell), a renowned cardiologist. Stephen lives a pleasant life in a beautiful house in a good part of the city, with his family, made up of his beautiful wife Anna (Nicole Kidman) and their two children, twelve-year-old son Bob (Sunny Suljić) and fourteen-year-old daughter Kim (Raffey Cassidy).
Stephen's life is in perfect harmony, so that the doctor even finds time for sixteen-year-old Martine (Barry Keoghan), a bright young man interested in medicine, whom he looks like his own son. Soon it becomes clear that there is something unnatural in their relationship, which is based on the death of Martin's father, former Dr. Murphy's patient. The doctor's perfect life is safe as long as he unconsciously plays by Martin's rules, but on the first made mistake Martin decides that the only justice for his father's death is the death of one of Stephen's family members.
Already in the synopsis it is possible to notice the enormous influence of the Euripides tragedy of Iphigenia in Aulis. Drama is even directly mentioned in one scene of the film, as the homework Kim prepares. According to the tragedy, Agamemnon hunting accidentally kills a holy deer, who belonged to Artemis, a Greek goddess of hunting and wild animals. The goddess therefore decides that the only justice for the death of her deer is the death of Agamemnon's daughter Iphigenia. It is interesting to see that Lanthimos gives his characters the knowledge of Greek tragedy and directs them to work with their own fobs. Iphigenia in Aulis remains only at the level of the model, because the knowledge possessed by the characters gives them the opportunity to try to save themselves from Martin's wrath and change the final outcome of their tragedy.
While the Dogtooth and The Lobster were placed in surreal worlds where human interaction was real, Lanthimos is building this film's evolution by inverting his own methods this time. The characters of the movie The Killing of a Sacred Deer remain in the real world, and their interaction becomes surreal and therefore unpleasant to watch. Observing how doctors are unable to detect the cause of sudden immobility of Kim and Bob is terrifying. Agony adds to the fact that Dr. Stephen was forced to believe that Martin's sixteen-year-old "evil spell" caused his children's immobility. Certainly the peak of the grotesque is Martin's demand that Stephen kill one of the children in order to make another one movable.
A conspicuous tragedy with elements of black humor, however, was something that could have been expected from the collaboration of Lanthimos and Philippe, so the progress in building the visual identity of the film is especially worth mentioning. Although previous works could have been influenced by Kubrick (as well as a few other film giants), The Killing of a Sacred Deer is seen as an absolute homage to the great director. On the very surface there is the life of Stephen Murphy and his wife Anne, who in many respects reminds of William and Alice Harford in the movie Eyes Wide Shut. The entertainment they visit, their sexual life, their daughter, all leave the impression that it's the same family. Of course there is also Nicole Kidman, who plays the role of a doctor's wife in both of these films.
Lanthimos, modeled on Kubrick, chooses a musical background for his film, which is a combination of classical music and modern music. The melodies of Hans Pfitzner and Franz Schubert form a substantial foundation, while Joe Smith & The Spicy Pickles and Elle Goulding bring in the gloom and discomfort with their conventionality.
The strongest card of the movie are actors who succeeded in placing emotions in Lanthimos intentional mechanical characters. Colin Farrell builds his acting on the trail of a previous collaboration with Lanthimos on The Lobster. So this time we get a much subtler performance from it, in which the moments of "Lanthimos logical dialogue" are not being attacked. Nicole Kidman managed to regain charm and emotion in her acting, which we haven't seen for a long time. Her performance brings sequential and ground-breaking, which we could see in Eyes Wide Shut, adding to that all the maturity of her protagonist.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer is truly the highlight of the creation of Lanthimos and Philippi. The two didn't fall into the heel of repetition with their fourth work, but offered us something new and different, in which it's possible to feel a serious development in relation to previous works.
All in all, those who choose to watch a movie expect two hours of engagement with a constant discomfort created by the reality that is taking place in an incredibly difficult, surrealistic part of utilitarian ethics.
Note: This was my translation from Ziher.hr article ''Ono što je najbliže pravdi'' by A.Fatic
