My overall take away from the film, without diminishing Khatami's personal creative choices, is that The Things You Kill is an unintentional homage to David Lynch; the timing is incredible.
Khatami's film is about a married Turkish university professor named Ali and his family, all of whom experience a family event that sets Ali on a path of what he believes to be justified revenge. After a mid-point plot pivot, the genre redirects from revenge drama to thriller, where every emotion and immorality of the human heart and soul is tested.
The substance emanates from a relationship that Ali develops with a wandering stranger named Reza, who he engages to labor in his garden. Reza, without much resistance, agrees to embark on Ali's plan for revenge. The ensuing plunge into depravity is initially filmed in obfuscating darkness, which dials up the Lynchian tenor of the film.
The shooting choices made by Khatami and his DP Bartosz Swiniarski are key to giving the screenplay the depth of a novel with credible characters, as in the frequent slow "pushing in moments" with characters perfectly framed by a door, a window, or an arch, until the mis-en-scene frames are no longer necessary. Swiniarski uses lenses that go in and out of focus, the latter suggesting a dream state - a recurring leitmotif.
There will be much discussion about how this film explores identity and sense of self, and there are abundant moments of soul searching and probing - especially consider that the main character is named Ali and the gardener cohort is named Reza - and amalgamation of the director's name.
