only a gentle yoke, o mediator

Well, I asked for it.

I confess that I wasn't expecting Brandon to pick a Lanthimos film.

It's amusing to me that I enjoyed this one more than Brandon. I still didn't like it, but I didn't hate it the way I hated Dogtooth (a film which I still respect in many ways) or shrug it off as stupid the way I did with the half-watched The Lobster or ignore it altogether like Alps.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Lanthimos immediately caught my attention, not with the beating heart (more on that soon), but with the opening notes over darkness that open the film. Lanthimos had appropriated a "sacred" choral work from the Christian tradition and was using it for his own nefarious purposes. My immediate response was anger and disgust, followed by curiosity--what would Lanthimos do with these very Christian themes of suffering and sacrifice coupled with glory and bliss?

As the apostle Paul puts it, "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

Could it be possible that Yorgos Lanthimos was seriously exploring this "folly"?



Of course, it turns out that the answer is NO. Lanthimos is not so serious. And I can hardly fault him for that. I am sympathetic to what Brandon quotes him as saying. I can't do anything "straight-forward" either. I can't seem to ever be 100% serious about anything. There's always a joke, always an irony, always some wrinkle that queers things; strange-forward. There's always a second and third and fourth level of mental questionings and twistings, the always aware that is crippling. Does this mean that I (along with Yargos) am reduced to gimmick? It feels that way sometimes.

What really strikes me as impressive in Sacred Deer is the direction of the actors. Every line is delivered flat. Every action seems somehow inevitable, even feeling morally neutral because it all rings so loudly of fatalism.

Every film is an artifice. Artificial. Constructed. Not natural. One strength of this film is that it lays that artifice completely bare. We never get "lost in the narrative" the same way we might with a great pop film because we are always aware that the narrative is completely in control of the narrator. It is in this anti-realism that Lanthimos is most successfully close to his ancient Greek fathers. Bresson is often brought up for his use of actors-as-models. Lanthimos' intended expression is different than Bresson, but the method seems to be similar. By stripping his actors of personality and emotional affect, Lanthimos does achieve something not quite the same but close to the effect of a mask, which of course it was always common for actors to wear on a stage. Actors should be masked. The stage should be fantastic and not realist. It is only us moderns who fail to understand this.

You will guide your models according to your rules, with them letting you act in them, and you letting them act in you. -Robert Bresson

Back to the "heart" of the film. As I've already mentioned, the film opens in darkness accompanied by the sounds and words of "Christ hovering on the cross," bringing to mind a crucified king ruling mysteriously from this position, revealing in this bizarre action the central truth of all creation.

We're immediately given a "hovering" shot, a top-down view of a beating heart. The perspective we are given is godlike, both observing life but also so clearly exhibiting a power over life and death.

The next shot is of a doctor disrobing, literally removing the robes of his office. In this shot, coupled with the last, we understand that the role of doctor is a priestly role. When the doctor is acting in his liturgical role (performing his service) he is given a trust and holds a responsibility. He is a minister of life and death.

This disrobing is practically just a shot of a surgeon finished with his surgery, but because of this film being what it is, freighted with symbols, the shot also carries much more resonance. The film begins with a "priest" who has in some sense been "defrocked." He is no longer qualified for the office.

The next scene involves this doctor and another talking about wristwatches. The camera distances itself. Our defrocked doctor talks of buying a new watch. He has been wearing the same watch for many years, operating under the same time. He now feels that he needs a new watch, a new time. It is highly significant then that this new time does not represent his own change. As soon as he purchases this new watch (establishing a new time), he hands it over to the young boy Martin, clearly indicating that it is now Martin's time, that what will now happen proceeds from Martin and is under the control of Martin.

Let's do a silly bit of namesplaining.

Steven - crown, garland

Martin - of Mars, warlike

Anna - gracious, full of grace

Then the generic diminuatives of Kim and Bob, probably meaning:

Kim - precious

Bob - bright fame

The family surname Murphy = sea-warrior or sea-battler, establishing them as Irish, yes (and therefore connecting them to a world of folk spirits and magic commonplace), but also suggesting the turbulence of the specific combat they are engaged in in the film, never sure, always shifting like the sea.

Now, I don't want to make too much of the names, but surely they are no accident and are not random. Martin being Mars being Ares being pretty much a male counterpart to Artemis makes sense. Besides Artemis' sacred deer, the snake was sacred to her as it was to Ares.

Steven, the medical professional operates under the symbol of the upraised snake, a symbol he profanes when he dares to operate as priest of his guild while under the influence of strange spirits.

Brandon makes light of the doctor's drinking. But depending on the temple cult, being drunk on the job is a death penalty offense. Even stripping the priest aspect of the job that I have been stressing, we should all agree that a surgeon performing a procedure after having a couple of drinks (I imagine double bourbon in this case, and that "a couple" is most likely the understatement of a chronic abuser) is a form of criminally negligent homicide.

In the film, Steven's guilt is established. And yet he is never repentant. He makes excuses about his drinking behavior and puts the blame off on another (a simple accident of nature, the possible misjudment of his co-worker). He never once takes responsibility. He insists that his crown is still in place.

Martin insists on responsibility. But he insists on mediation, a sacrificial substitute. That just as Steven has killed someone special to Martin (I think that the father-killing is secondary to the betrayal of the medical office; that's my current read of the film), so Mars insists on the killing of something special to Steven.

At no point does Steven offer up himself. It doesn't even seem to cross his mind. He first fights against the idea of killing one of his family, but he finally gives in. Skipping over a lot, in the end an acceptable sacrifice to atone for his sin has been made and he can resume his life unstained.

There are some Christian themes in this, but what is remarkable is how ruggedly, insistently Hellenistic the film is. To whatever extent an audience rejects this film, it rejects Greek philosophy and Greek religion, and it does so because of the Morning of Christ's Nativity. The Killing of a Sacred Deer turns out to be a Christmas movie after all. Huh.

https://youtu.be/E8Ot-KPVZVE

Back to the artifice. Lanthimos introduces an element of dread, this terrible fatalism which comes from the capricious will of the gods. A god (Martin, whodathunk?) is offended and a human must bow before the will of this god. Resistance is futile. The will of the god will be achieved regardless.

As dread events begin in the film, we want to call bullshit. Screw you, Lanthimos. The guy has a choice. Something can be done. Fight it. Fight. THIS IS ALL ONLY HAPPENING JUSTBECAUSE YOU SAY IT IS, NOT BECAUSE IT IS NATURAL. IT IS BULLSHIT. IT IS A BETRAYAL OF OUR EXPECTATIONS. STOP IT.

And yet it never stops. It gets worse. And finally we come to the fated conclusion, the god is satisfied, and life can move on.

The film ends with Bach's St John Passion. And I'm not sure if it's a twisted irony or a desperate prayer. Or most likely both...

O Lord, our lord.

It is an impressive piece of filmmaking. Writing all of this has had me re-evaluating it even further, grudgingly convincing myself that I like this one after all.

Lanthimos reminds me of von Trier. Both are tortured provocateurs trying to communicate with audiences who no longer feel anything. Both are working so obviously in the Shadow of the Cross, haunted and hounded by a violent grace, severe mercies; they try to account for these peculiar glories amid a grimy world, a world that has stripped away all of their tools for doing so-- they work on the edges of an artistic culture which has already given up on meaning, which has no basis for anything. I can only sympathize with their struggles even when they result in cinematic tantrums and childish outbursts of violent creativity, sometimes hurting themselves as they lash out.

Go figure. Happy 2018. Film Club is dead. Long live Film Club.