You know where you aren’t with director Yorgos Lanthimos. The Greek allegorist creates parallel worlds which superficially resemble our own. In Dogtooth an overweening patriarch incarcerates his three adult children in a state of infantilised innocence. The Lobster punishes those unable to find a mate by transfiguring them into animals. His acerbic commentaries on flawed modernity feel like lurid horror stories the ancients forgot to write down.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer invokes pagan sacrifice in its title. Iphigenia is even mentioned in dispatches — the subject of a schoolgirl essay that doubles as a mythological flare. The film opens on a close-up of open-heart surgery in which a sickly pink organ throbs garishly. After the operation two bloodstained surgical gauntlets are tossed into a bin. This is a film in which the gloves will come off.
The surgeon is Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell, bearded like a scraggy Pythagoras), who is married to an ophthalmologist Anna (Nicole Kidman) — hearts and eyes, theirs are a pair of grimly symbolic specialisms.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in