THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER

Steven (Colin Farrell) is a surgeon, married, father of two – a life on calm, affluent tracks. At the edge of this life, Martin (Barry Keoghan) keeps appearing, a teenager whose closeness Steven tolerates and even seeks out, without explaining why. But Martin’s demands grow more insistent, and eventually he confronts Steven with a choice: he must kill a member of his family. Otherwise, one after another, they will first lose the ability to walk, then to eat, and finally bleed from the eyes until they die – as atonement for the death of Martin’s father. In “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” (Ireland/United Kingdom 2017), Yorgos Lanthimos tells a modern version of ancient revenge.

The film loosely follows Euripides’ “Iphigenia in Aulis” and, after “The Lobster”, is Lanthimos’ second English-language work. In competition at Cannes 2017, Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou won the award for best screenplay. In 2017, “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in the Closing Night section.