Hanging out w/Alireza Khatami

hanging out with my fellow Canadian AliReza Khatami , writer/director of the raw, provocative, visionary, Lynchian truly transcendent masterpiece The Things You Kill, which opens THIS WEDNESDAY, 11/19, in LA...GO SEE IT!!!...as it's a darkly comic, haunting psychological thriller involving generational trauma, as is my debut memoir & upcoming film Killing Justice/Orphan Rising...here's a link to the official trailer ...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A71FXSFggs0 Alireza Khatami's Lynchian mindfuck "The Things You Kill," offers a thrilling, bewildering and game-changing twist takes the viewer on an unexpected journey that confounds expectations. "The Things You Kill" is bold and transfixing cinema...The film is a daring, transfixing work that examines antiquated ideas of masculinity and patriarchal power....Khatami also has a blast with perception vs. reality... You have to experience this enigmatic work to appreciate its riches. It’s absorbing, suspenseful, and deeply moving — a case study in how to make an effective psychological thriller. The filmmaker's first name provides a not-insignificant clue as to what's going on, as his filmmaking deconstructs the story and his protagonist in initially confusing, and then riveting ways. The Things You Kill works as a stone-cold upheaval of the conditions that make a man’s internal clock tick the way it does, a story of haunting specters and past traumas that continue to torment the present. It is well-crafted, introspective, and flawed in ways that feel true to the messy emotional territory it’s working in. It is a morality play displayed through a slow burn of a revenge thriller that rewards those who are patient. An unnerving character study that often borders on thriller territory, "The Things You Kill" is a psychologically intense piece of genre filmmaking. It’s a stunning piece of cinema that gets beneath the surface of an all-too familiar story to give form to the universal psychological struggle at its back. Because this isn’t a Muslim problem or Evangelical problem. It’s a human problem. Debts to Luis Buñuel and David Lynch are obvious, but “The Things You Kill” has its own way of getting inside its protagonist’s head space — and yours. A dark, gritty and emotionally devastating revenge thriller full of twists and surprises. There’s something of the dread of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Dostoyevskian slow burn Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) here, but Khatami keeps things as tightly wound as barbed wire in his intimate and intense study in disintegration. The Things You Kill plays out as a gripping, twist-filled thriller, but beneath the suspense lies a disturbing and insightful look at machismo and the insidious ways it’s inherited and normalized over time. The Things You Kill is an inventive, entrancing, and foreboding piece of work that takes its standard boilerplate family drama narrative to new heights thanks to its psychological underpinnings, sterling filmmaking, and great performances from the cast. The Things You Kill is a fabulously layered piece of work that serves as a family drama, a crime film and a sociological study all rolled into one. Although rightly presented as a psychological thriller, The Things You Kill generally eschews the genre’s more derivative leanings to proffer a disarmingly earnest meditation on identity in crisis. This disturbing and brutally honest film doesn’t rush to provide answers, but instead slowly reveals the emotional burden of carrying the deep-rooted pain of generational trauma and the desperate need for vengeance. “The Things You Kill” works as sufficient self-exorcism that never relies on gratuitous violence nor sensationalism to examine its provocative implications. Khatami’s third feature is a doom-laden exploration of identity and masculine fragility, one that displays quite a bit of trust in its audience to piece together its wilder swings without any need for coddling or hand-holding. Who is what and what is who? One thing is certain, however: you will think long and hard about what you’ve just watched and ponder its core meaning. It’s cinema as brain teaser… a riveting blend of Lynchian oddity and Turkish realism. The fact that it slowly reveals its intentions within its puzzlement is what makes it, ultimately, so intoxicating. As suspenseful as it is profound, Alireza Khatami exercises near-perfect genre poise. The Things You Kill uses a story about revenge as a vehicle for something much more existential and surreal, sneaking up on you in thrilling ways. As the story unfolds, you can see at least half a dozen ways in which the film could have gone terribly wrong. Watching Khatami sidestep them all is exhilarating. Khatami boldly explores a compelling psychological portrait of vengeance and how our own internalized compartmentalization and interpretation fosters one's own self destruction. The Things You Kill is as much about killing off the parts of ourselves as it is about the persons in our lives who exist solely as living, breathing reminders of society’s perennial sins. “The Things You Kill” is an astutely written exercise in paying attention to how one is perceived and using that knowledge to rewrite one’s own narrative. Khatami certainly has a lot to say, especially about the crushing effects of the male hierarchy on both a personal and professional level. Khatami expertly crafts a Lynchian-like thriller that explores the danger of following our inner saboteur. "The Things You Kill" is like a bad, sweat-breaking dream that leaves you dazed and feverish -- and a black-hearted gaze into the poison patriarchy oozes into men's veins just as much as women. A quiet and formally rigorous portrait of a paternalistic society, the crimes it breeds, and the fury, shame, regret, and self-loathing that follows. The less naturalistic parts of The Things You Kill come as a surprise, but the dreamy, sexually tense film is constantly obsessed with the parts of us that we don’t want to acknowledge in the cold light of day. Alireza Khatami’s third feature is a subtly enigmatic examination of the nature of masculinity. A gut punch on multiple levels.