Late in the incisive psychological drama “The Things You Kill,” Ali (Ekin Koç), a married man in his thirties, opens up about a traumatic episode in his childhood and the reasons why he decided to leave Turkey and study comparative literature in the U.S. The monologue is momentarily shot out of focus with his face slightly blurred, as if the more he reveals about himself the more clarity the image earns. Metaphorically, the ordeal he undergoes in this tale of emotional transmutation appears to occupy that interstitial, clouded space, with the protagonist seeking a lucid state of mind to confront his tempestuous present.
From Iranian writer-director Alireza Khatami — returning to solo directing after making the Iran-set film “Terrestrial Verses,” comprised of fierce political vignettes, alongside Ali Asgari — the intriguing narrative examines how a single person holds multiple identities within themselves, emerging depending on the situation they face. It’s as if an individual spoke a unique language with each person in their life, translating themselves to adapt to every context. Everyone, to an extent, is a personality polyglot.
Heady as that concept sounds, “The Things You Kill” grounds its thesis on the familial conflicts that afflict Ali and slowly unspools them to serve as illustrations for the ideas at play. For one, Ali worries about his ill mother’s safety living with his forbidding and absent father, Hamit (Ercan Kesal). At the same time, his veterinarian wife Hazar (Hazar Ergüçlü) pushes him to seek reproductive healthcare as they’ve struggled to conceive. Amid the quotidian turmoil, Reza (Erkan Kolçak Köstendil), a wanderer looking for work, shows up at Ali’s garden in the remote countryside — expansive arid vistas color the narrative with an unnerving allure through cinematographer Bartosz Swiniarski’s lens. Ali hires Reza to look after the vegetation, which sparks a strange friendship between the two disparate men.
Long-suppressed, Ali’s resentment towards his father fully emerges after his mother’s sudden death. The more information he unearths about what transpired in his absence from Turkey, the more he becomes consumed with rage. The people he thought he knew now seem like strangers. In playing Ali, a searing Koç keeps his seething thirst for retribution underneath contained exasperation and disbelief, which effectively contrasts the macho rogue confidence in Köstendil’s imposing turn as Reza. The pairing creates a type of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde relationship. Even as viewers become aware of the dichotomy that rules over “The Things You Kill,” Kathami cleverly expands its meaning with each revelation.
Teaching a course on English translation at a local college, Ali explains the etymological Arabic root of the concept of translating means “to kill,” to destroy a previous version of a term for a new one to exist, and while they might have similar definitions in both languages, the words are never identical. The Ali who spoke English in America is not the same who relates to the world in Turkish. Each distinct persona carves out a portion of his selfhood. Shots of Ali sleeping may initially appear like casual transitions, but the significance of these naps and the realm of dreams as another space where people get to experience other lives bookend the picture.
Front to back, “The Things You Kill” is an astutely written exercise in paying attention to how one is perceived and using that knowledge to rewrite one’s own narrative. For another woman, Hamit can be the loving husband he wasn’t with Ali’s mother. The new girlfriend only knows the tender version of himself he’s created for her. By the same token, Ali and his sister grew up with a positive image of their grandfather because Hamit omitted how his father raised him. In killing the past, and with it the truth, either by taking on a new demeanor or by keeping secrets, a transformation takes place. Having children is also understood as a second try at life here — an opportunity to start anew indirectly. Ali worries, however, that becoming a parent could mean repeating his dad’s shortcomings.
That Khatami made this feature in Turkey, a country he’s not originally from, comes off as thematically in sync with his body of work; his 2017 debut feature “Oblivion Verses” is a Spanish-language magical realist tale shot in Chile. The central concept of “The Things You Kills” applies sharply to Khatami’s filmmaking. What kind of artist is he when working in Turkish or Spanish, and who does he become or revert back to when creating in his native Persian? That’s a query one could pose to anyone who has left their homeland for an international setting. What version of themselves takes over or comes forth, depending on the latitude and cultural environment they are in? In other words, it’s code-switching.
Not meant to be taken literally, the twist after a shocking act violence reads like the materialization of Ali’s desire to be a bolder, more stereotypically masculine iteration of himself. That the main character is named Ali and the gardener that eventually usurps his reality is called Reza speaks of two souls existing inside one body, as the director’s first name is the amalgamation of these two names: Alireza. That somewhat conspicuous detail seems to evince the profoundly personal relationship between the creation and the artist.
The man Ali wishes he could be is willing to bribe authorities to gain access to the amount water his garden needs, to obscure the facts about his whereabouts on a crucial night, to give in to his most unethical sexual impulses and to mistreat those around him he believes threaten his plans. In other words, the Ali that takes over for a while is the embodiment of his worst self. Is that who he was abroad? With “The Things You Kill” Khatami turns in an absorbing and twisty take on introspection.
