Alireza Khatami's "The Things You Kill": Father of Meaning

From Iran, his homeland where he made his first two films, to Turkey, the host country for The Things You Kill, Alireza Khatami essentially films the same thing: individuals confronted with the resistance of archaic institutions. Family institutions here, since the film focuses on Ali, a professor returning home after several years spent in the United States, who comes up against his father's uncompromising authority. To the point of questioning his own desire for paternity, and even suspecting his father of being responsible for his mother's death, which occurred after an unexplained fall.

Rather than rushing into its thriller plot, The Things You Kill distinguishes itself by a sense of situation, in line with Khatami's previous feature. As in Tehran Chronicles , a sketch film centered on the dysfunctions of Iranian society, it unfolds its sequences over time, with long takes that reveal the inequalities of the different power relations, between father and son, husband and wife, teacher and students, superior and employee, etc. Every small surface disturbance (rotten pipes, old faulty printer) becomes