Tag: The Killing of a Sacred Deer

The Favourite

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

The maverick Greek director of Dogtooth (2009) makes his third English language film and his first period costume drama. The Favourite is loosely based on early 18th century historical record. Queen Anne, the last of the Stuarts who was beset by health issues, had some 17 pregnancies including many miscarriages and no heir surviving beyond the age of 11.

Her smart and shrewd childhood companion and friend Lady Sarah Churchill did much of Anne’s thinking for her, pushing her to support the merchant class political party the Whigs rather than the landed gentry party the Tories. The Whigs demanded support for a war against the French, while the Tories were resistant to the heavily increased taxes which funded the war effort at their expense. The relationship of Lady Sarah to the Queen was undermined by the arrival of maidservant Abigail Hill, a ruthless member of the gentry whose family had fallen on hard times and who was determined to fight her way back up the social ladder at any cost.

If that outline is true to the facts, the screenplay fashioned upon their foundation by Lanthimos and screenwriter Tony McNamara seek to explore less the historic detail of what actually happened and more the power dynamics of the three women involved. Olivia Colman is magnificent as the shy and vulnerable Anne who nevertheless wields absolute power as monarch. Rachel Weisz makes a fearsome Lady Sarah, whether the powerful manipulator seen at the start or the hideously disfigured victim of a riding accident she becomes towards the end as events turn against her. Emma Stone as the social climber Abigail however seems to be playing the same empowered woman character she always plays.

There’s a strong if historically contentious sexual element, with Lady Sarah the Queen’s clandestine lover until Abigail, who initially ingratiates herself with both Anne and Sarah by using a herbal paste to relieve burning sensations in the bedridden Anne’s legs, replaces Sarah in Anne’s affections. Further intrigues involve the English two party Parliament in the story’s background. Foppish opposition Tory leader Robert Harley (Nicholas Hoult, the memorable psychotic from George Miller’s 2015 Mad Max: Fury Road almost unrecognisable under a lengthy, light coloured wig) senses Abigail working her way into the Queen’s favour and wants to recruit her to spy on Lady Sarah and Anne. Although a fringe character, he is more pivotal to the action than his rival the government’s Whig PM Lord Godolphin (James Smith) who the Queen, under Sarah’s influence, supports.

Apart from Stone’s arrival where she’s literally pushed out of the carriage into the shit on the ground, her excursions into the forest to collect ingredients for a herbal paste to ease a painful condition on her arm and scenes of Lady Sarah outside shooting and riding, the proceedings play out within the confines of Anne’s vast palace – kitchens staffed with cooks and maids, lengthy corridors with footmen, the Queen’s vast bedchamber which is also a well-stocked library.

Cinematographer Robbie Ryan frequently shoots from bravura angles although his slavish use of Kubrickian reverse tracking shots is less than original and while the overall look and feel of the piece echoes Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975), it lacks that film’s rigorous discipline and doesn’t similarly immerse the viewer in its eighteenth century world.

Lanthimos still hasn’t bettered his earlier, homegrown Greek films like Kinetta (2005) and Dogtooth (2009) both of which not only present strange and unfamiliar worlds to the viewer but also completely immerse him/her in them. Those promised a maverick artist on a par with the likes of Lynch and Cronenberg, on which promise his bigger budget, English language movies (The Lobster, 2015, The Killing Of A Sacred Deer, 2017) haven’t to date delivered. As with those films, while there’s much to admire in The Favourite, it still fails to achieve those qualities of Lanthimos’ early films that marked him out as destined for greatness.

The Favourite is out in the UK from Saturday, December 29th. Watch the film trailer below:

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Posted on by victorfraga

Without a shadow of a doubt, The Killing of A Sacred Deer is one of the most anticipated films of the hunting season of cinema. Curzon Artificial Eye had postponed its UK release date, only to make us salivate like a famished dog in front of a juicy bowl of food. That said, I will do my best to write a review without offering you any spoiler. If you are into zoology, then you are in for a treat. There is no shortage of animals in the world of the Greek filmmaker, who also made Dogtooth (2009) and The Lobster (2015). The Killing of A Sacred Deer is even wilder than his previous films. In case you have never watched his films, you might want to take a tranquiliser before heading to the cinema.

Lanthimos cast Colin Farrell in the main role again (after Lobster). The Irish actor looks comfortable in his absurdist universe. This time he is a successful cardiac surgeon called Stephen Murphy, happily married to Anna (Nicole Kidman), also a doctor. They have two children and balance their working life with their parental duties quite well. Both kids have tasks at home: the girl walks the dog and the boy waters the plants.

Farrell has a secret friend, a 16-year-old boy. They meet very often at popular diner, located at Sickamore Street. (The name of the street is not gratuitous, there’s an onomatopoeic value central to the plot). But it is not clear what is this relation all about. Farrell is neither gay nor into young lovers, it seems. On one of these occasions, the teen foresees a tragic sequence of events in Farrell’s family. The boy says that Farrell’s children and wife will die one by one.

This is pretty much what I can tell without ruining your desire to watch the film. I can also suggest that you read a classic Greek tragedy such as Iphigenia (which is mentioned in the movie). The Killing of a Sacred Deer is nothing but a staging of a Greek sacrifice. In Ancient Greece, sacrifice meant killing a domestic animal and offering part of it to the gods, while eating the rest yourself. The Greeks hunted and killed animals for sacrificial purposes, including deer, fish and goats. The problem was that people felt uncomfortable and guilty about killing animals which they reared themselves.

There’s a lot of eating in the film. And guilt and denial too. At one point, Kidman asks Farrell how he is able to enjoy a meal while his kids are sick. Farrell is not a bad father. He tries hard to avoid the tragedy, but that works out just like in the Greek myths. The harder he tries to avoid his fate, the closer he sees it coming.

Although the feature is disturbing as hell, Lanthimos keep reminding us that this is just fiction. Actors are quite distant and even robotic, in good Brechtian style. Lathimos’s style relies on the audience’s reflective detachment rather than emotional involvement. The detachment technique is particularly evident when the daughter sings at the choir, another element of the Greek plays. Music does not cause audience to the daughter; on the contrary, it pushes the audience away from the characters. This is a very dirty and subversive movie.

The Killing of A Sacred Deer is showing at the BFI London Film Festival taking place between October 5th and 15th, and a week later at the Cambridge Film Festival. Theatrical release date is on Friday, November 3rd.