In Conversation: ‘The Things You Kill’ Writer, Director, and Producer Alireza Khatami

by Emma Batterman

Writer, director, and producer Alireza Khatami examines patriarchy and inherited violence in his latest psychological thriller The Things You Kill. The story revolves around Ali, an infertile Turkish professor and amateur gardener played by Ekin Koç. Reeling from the suspiciously abrupt death of his ailing mother and surmising his volatile father as the possible cause, Ali decides to take action after some encouragement from the new laborer in his wilting garden, Reza (Erkan Kolçak Köstendil). Hesitant to carry out any truly violent reprisal, Reza scolds Ali before taking matters into his own hands, murdering Ali’s father and burying him in a dry, desert grave. It’s at this moment where Khatami employs a kafkaesque mutation of the self as Reza seamlessly shifts from his role as employee to becoming Ali himself. His sisters, students, and even his wife (Hazar Ergüçlü) don't appear perturbed by Ali’s replacement. Our protagonist continues down a path of self-erasure, becoming more and more unrecognizable as he lashes out at the world around him. Despite this new Ali’s increasingly capricious inclination towards anger and deceit, the film gaslights you into acceptance. Of course this is Ali. This has always been Ali.

The question of masculinity is at the core of our protagonist. Symbolism penetrates almost every frame as Khatami implements endless motifs that harken back to the cyclical nature of patriarchy and how it's able to manifest within the self. What could easily become an overbearingly exhaustive use of metaphor instead enriches its themes of generational trauma and inherited violence. Parallels between Ali's infertility, the wilting garden, the broken pipes in the house, and even language itself are piled on the audience in a palpable portrayal of otherness. 

With his flickering selves and broken mirrors framing his appearance, Ali's identity as a man is challenged by the very question of what it means to be one. Despite his insistence on the contrary, the weight of emasculation is suffocating. The shadow of his father as the ultimate standard of manhood envelops him as his attempts to escape it escalate to murder. There is no passivity in Khatami’s quest for the patriarchal understanding of the self. With decisive visuals, fantastic performances, and a genre-defying story, The Things You Kill is a brilliant dissection of masculinity, patriarchal inheritance, and cyclical violence. We had a chance to sit down with the writer-director to untangle the film’s themes and explore how his background as a self-described man between nations contributed to their development.

There are heavy themes that surround familial cycles of violence, trauma, and masculinity in The Things You Kill. What pushed you to tackle these topics and what do you think makes them relevant in today’s political climate?

Today, I saw an Instagram post about how ICE is stopping people in Chicago, forcing them to show IDs, and are brutalizing Chicago residents. And these are decisions—random decisions—made by an 80-year-old man who doesn’t think he needs to follow [the] law. How patriarchal [is that], right? And then looking at these world structures of patriarchy, I was realizing maybe I need to study the psychology of the politics, and the very politics of the psychology. How do we reproduce power that we end up with such a political structure?

That is why in the film, my characters are walking in a city that has a constant gaze of the figure of [the] father, who is on the flags, or on the images, or in the offices and the hospitals. In everywhere, basically, in schools—there’s always the figure of [the] father who is watching over you, right? What pushes us to produce this all the way up? And that, to me, was looking at the very structure of the family. How not only women, but men are part of—are being subjected to this brutal violence. That was the beginning of it, and also my personal histories. I was the only son of a big family—I have four sisters—and how privileged I was [as a] man, and not even realizing that until I was much older. 

You mentioned the father figure showing up around the city, specifically Atatürk. Originally you were going to shoot this film in Iran, but authorities required certain aspects of the story to be censored. And so, working around this, you set the film in Turkey. I noticed—like with the figure of Atataürk—you didn’t bury this change. You embraced it. I was wondering what challenges you faced from this change and how the story shifted due to this new setting?

Filmmaking is always a challenge, regardless of where you’re shooting it [or] how much money you have. Filmmaking is basically the orchestration of the accident. That’s what Guillermo del Toro calls it, the orchestrations of the accident. Our accident was that we didn’t receive the shooting permission in Iran. When we went to Turkey, I did not want to make a political movie about an Iranian guy who couldn't shoot it, therefore he went to Turkey. I didn’t want to fit into what American media loves. You know, “Here is an oppressed film!” No, I didn’t want to make that movie. 

So, we completely changed it to a Turkish setting, to Turkish history, to Turkish geography. I worked with my actors very closely and with a few other artists to adopt the story. What changed was the cosmetics of the script. The phrases they use; the languages they use; the way it works; the question of water in Turkey, how that is an issue; the question of Central Anatolia. These became the cosmetic change to completely fit and address the nuances of the shift. But the pain—the question of the critique of patriarchy, the psychological reading of the politics—stayed the same. The characters of Ali and Reza, the question of the father, the dust of the mother, they all basically stayed the same and we didn't change that at all. 

I didn't even realize that it was supposed to be set in Iran after I finished the film. It was a pretty seamless shift.

I think now it's a Turkish movie. It is. I mean, yes, there was a time that we wanted to make it elsewhere. But it is a Turkish film. 

You were born into the indigenous Khamse tribe. Am I pronouncing that right?

Yes. A lot of American folks call it “Kam-se” with a “K.” It basically means five.

Yes, the Khamse tribe in southeastern Iran. I was just wondering about your specific upbringing and cultural heritage. What about those contributed to the creation of this story? 

My parents spoke different languages. I grew up speaking Farsi, which is the official language of the country. This was not my mother tongue or my father tongue. So, I grew up between languages. And, as an indigenous person, I was always a minority in the city. I was always between nations, between languages, between geographies, and I've spent close to two decades of my life in exile in different countries, almost in 15 cities. So the question of translation has [always been] a prominent concern for me. How do you understand one idea, one thought, one word, from one language to another? How do we translate this idea from one to another? And here is the story of a man who has gone to the United States to “study literature,” and now has come back, and is looking at his own hometown, and is trying to understand it. He has to translate the new realities for himself. And the question is, what has to die before the new ideas—new understanding—can be bought? 

Ali even being a professor of translation, that all fits. 

Yeah, I mean, I am a professor at a university. I used to teach at Depaul in Chicago. Now I teach at Toronto Metropolitan University in Toronto. Again, this is a movie that is very, very close to my own history. It's the job that I know the best. 

Fatherhood and the struggles of confronting patrimonial violence are the core of Ali's character. I notice a lot of motifs that connect back to this theme, such as parallels between Ali's infertility and the planting of seeds in his garden. 

I was wondering if you could expand on the role that the desert, specifically, plays in these generational threads of symbolism. Because a lot of this film takes place in this barren setting where most seeds struggle to take root. 

Speaking of self-reflection in cinema, we often take the characters to a confined, dark space. The cliche, the archetype, would be a cave. The prophets go to the caves to come up, right? Speak with God, for example [. . .] So I wanted to reverse it. I want to take a new, fresh path. I thought instead of going to a dark place, let's go to a beautiful, vast landscape. But, the character actually feels lonely, small. I wanted to take [Ali] outside the city, outside this gaze of the structure of patriarchy. So I went there, and then the question of a garden came in. As soon as the garden [came] in, it was obvious that the garden should be a reflection of his—because ultimately, it's about him not being able to give birth to a new sense of himself. A new seed of himself cannot grow yet. Everything is barren. And then, I started playing with more. The house has a pipe issue, there is a pipe issue in the garden, and there is even a pipe issue in him. Low sperm count, blah, blah, blah, right? This kind of became a way of preparing a platform [where] audiences can come in and build their own meanings. 

Speaking of the garden, or staying in that similar area, the first time we see the gardener is through this broken mirror on the outside of that small house. There's this great moment after Ali kills the gardener. The camera moves out of the same mirror, and the perspective shifts pretty seamlessly, and Ali is back to his original self. 

Harkening back to the title, what role does the self play when we talk about “the things you kill?” And do you think killing feeds into this cycle of violence that you've been referencing throughout the movie? Or does it break it? 

Speaking of the self, in Persian classic poetry, mirrors are a very well established metaphor for self. It's a seven, eight hundred-years-old established metaphor. I thought it's pretty fitting to use the mirror as a gate, to enter the world of the character. So what is the story? The entire story of the film is about a man who has a single narrative, a masculine narrative, about the world. He thinks, “I went to the States, I studied literature, I washed dishes, therefore I'm a feminist. I'm a good person. I have a hang of the world. I got this.” And as soon as teenage narratives start appearing, these narratives start falling apart. 

[ . . . ]

And his wife asks him, did your mom tell you bedside stories? He says no, he liked puzzles, things you cannot know. Life is a mystery, like the sister says, it's easy to stay afar and preach, but it’s difficult to come and live. You don't have all the answers, but you have to live it. So, I thought it's very fitting that the moment the self negotiation begins, we dive into a mirror, and as soon as Ali is ready to face the world, and hold the world and all its mysteries in hand, they come back to reality. So the entire second act of the film happens inside this reflection. 

I love that. It's my favorite shot of the film. 

I'm glad you're connected. 

There's a moment where one of Ali's sisters says that agony seems to be reserved only for women. I think with that commentary, with these similar threads, you struck a great balance incorporating women's perspectives in the story without trapping them in their own victimhood. I think that can be a very easy hole to fall into. 

How did you go about finding that gendered balance? I know that the focus is on Ali. It focuses on a male perspective about patriarchal values, but it's not stuck in that male perspective, if that makes sense. 

Yeah, stories about male perspective being challenged by the female perspective. Because his story falls apart when the sister tells the story. Then the older sister tells the story, then the lover tells a story, Mom tells a story, aunt tells a story, wife tells a story. He just constantly goes around trying to find and hold onto his own versions, and then he ends up lying and the wife says, “Either you lie to yourself, or you’re lying to me.” The balance comes from the construction of the male narrative and construction of a narrative that is inclusive of other stories. 

These characters are more or less based on people in my life. My sisters, my aunts, my mom, none of them are victims. The mother in the film—she has a very sharp tongue. She makes fun of Ali's wife, she jokes about things, right? The sisters are complex characters. On one hand, they're against their father for what he did. On the other hand, they love their father and they're trying to protect him. On the other hand, they want to wait for him. These are complex [characters]! It’s so simple to say, “Oh, they're subjected to violence and therefore they're only a victim.” They are participating in the system. They resist the system. They hate the system. They nurture the system, right? Again, the things you kill are about the killing of a simple narrative, and allowing for a much more complex narrative, perhaps. 

Like I said, it's really easy to fall into that hole, that black and white idea of a woman as a victim, and how that's the only thing that she can be. I thought you did a very good job with that nuanced perspective. 

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I'm glad. It [says] something about you, actually, more than it does about the film. 

I saw this film all the way back at Sundance, back in January. It was my favorite film of the festival. 

Thank you. I'm glad that you watched it there, it was a special screening. 

Since then, it's been selected as Canada's entry for Best International Feature Film for the 98th Academy Awards. How does that feel? What was your reaction when you got the news? 

We were very happy because it's the first time a Turkish language movie is put forward by Canada. Canada was mostly putting French films, with very few exceptions of native speaking films. We never had other BIPOC stories being taken seriously. So, we fought for this. And they're very proud that they have finally [broken down] that barrier. We got very emotional calls from BIPOC who were extremely happy, because it was a signal [. . .] It's much more inclusive of the stories of its residents. Canada is becoming much more representative of the stories that it hosts.