Thoughts on The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

There is something gravely wrong leaking through every second of this film, something grotesque that lingers under the polite gift-wrapped almost artificial normalcy that is at first presented. 

The camera sickeningly creeps toward characters framed in wide shots, filmed in such a way that you feel like a spectator, intruding upon a space that's alien and wrong and unnatural.

Every part is steeped in uneasy tension. Insidious intention that lurks beneath uncanny inappropriate actions cut through the social distance of normalcy, creating something shameful, disgusting and terrifying. 

Every character seems to be complicit in some sort of secrecy, seems to be robbed of their base emotions. Through the film, characters are depicted in ways that obscures their features, a detachment from the innermost selves.

It is almost a relief when we are offered an explanation. Although still cryptic, we have something to attach meaning to, to tie the lucidity and uncanny to something concrete, a real emotion as opposed to the incomprehensible darkness.

It's almost a relief when the twisted, ugly human emotions surface, when human condition become undone. The paranoia, the militant self-interest, the anger, the anguish all become our solace in this abject horror.

Martin is Death slowly approaching, Anna is the Tormented, the children are the Damned and Steven is both the Sinner and the Reaper. The members of the family are ghosts, selfish intention takes over, the love is gone, just posturing and soulless pleas. 

In Yorgos Lanthimos' world, there is no soul, there is no love, there is no real, just the terror of silence and an unmoving stare. 

Originally posted on Letterboxd on 15th October, 2023