AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Ali's life, on the surface, looks perfect. He's a young university professor in Turkey, having returned home recently after spending years studying abroad. He's married to a beautiful veterinarian, Hazar. He even has a piece of property out in the hills, which he's hoping to develop. But his mother's sudden and suspicious death reveals the extent to which Ali's life and possibly his mind are unraveling. The film "The Things You Kill" is written and directed by Alireza Khatami, who joins us now from our studios in Culver City. Welcome to the program.
ALIREZA KHATAMI: Thank you so much for having me, Ayesha.
RASCOE: So you are an Iranian, Canadian and American filmmaker, but this movie is in Turkish. Why did you want to set the story in Turkey?
KHATAMI: This movie is very close to my heart. I wrote it based on my own personal traumas and some tragedies, and I wanted to go to Iran and shoot it there. However, for censorship regulations, I could not shoot it, and we had to move the story to another context and geography. Turkey has an amazing pool of actors. I am also indigenous from southwest of Iran that speaks a dialect of Turkish, so I could understand a little bit, and I thought that's an - actually a good way to enter to that culture and language.
RASCOE: The main character of the movie, Ali - he's struggling in a lot of ways - at work, his marriage - and then his mother dies. And it's like something seems to snap within him when that happens, right?
KHATAMI: Yes. So this is the story about a man. At the heart of it, it's about a man who has a single narrative and a very simple narrative. He thinks he went to United States. He has studied and read a couple of books. He's a feminist because he washed dishes, so he's good to go. And as soon as female narrative arrives, cracks in his simple narrative opens. And through these cracks, Reza appears, and then Reza promised to hold onto that single narrative.
RASCOE: We should note your name is Alireza. And then you have Ali, who's the main character, and then Reza, who is the drifter who comes into the picture. And so what does Reza represent?
KHATAMI: Reza is that desire for a simple narrative, you know, that desire in all of us that makes us want to believe.
RASCOE: It seems like for Ali, that looks like being macho, in charge, just doing whatever it is that you feel like puts you in control.
KHATAMI: Yeah. Absolutely. This is a masculinity in crisis. Masculinity, by definition, for me, is in crisis because it's a simple story. It's not an expansive story. So you have a simple answer to things. Reza is that simple answer to everything. We have to kill? We will. We have to bribe? We will. We have to do this or that. It's simple.
RASCOE: Well, Ali suspects his dad has something to do with his mother's death, and he does seem to plan revenge, but it's unclear if it's actually his plan. And there is a twist. Tell us about why you introduced that twist 'cause something happens, and you're like, did I miss something? What's going on here?
KHATAMI: (Laughter).
RASCOE: What's - (laughter) you know what I'm saying?
KHATAMI: So we are, nowadays, become addict to very cheap drugs of dopamine. Movies try to hold us by all cost, you know, just give us a little dopamine to stay, you know? In that interaction, there is no space for thinking. So halfway through the film, I wanted to pull the rug from beneath the audience and completely disorient them.
RASCOE: Yes.
KHATAMI: So audience go like, what? Wait a second. What happened?
RASCOE: (Laughter) What happened?
KHATAMI: You know...
RASCOE: (Laughter) Did I miss something?
KHATAMI: ...Did I miss something? Now you're out of the film. So you - now you have to willingly find your way to the film. In that decision-making to come back, there is a space created, and there is a space for contemplation and thinking, critical thinking, you know? Films are not for consumption but for participation.
RASCOE: This film does deal with abuse, generational abuse. And I guess was that difficult for you to explore? And especially in the - in Ali's father who - it's very complicated how to view him because on the one hand, he seems horrible. But then he also seems to be very loved by some of the women in the family. And it just seems - it's very messy.
KHATAMI: But life is messy, right? Like, people are not only good or bad. People are a historical product of their own time. Let's sit down. Let's listen to your stories, and you listen to my stories. And between the two of us, we come with a narrative that lets you live and lets me live.
RASCOE: Have your family members seen this movie? Have they had thoughts about it or...
KHATAMI: I asked my family not to see this. This is - I think it's too brutal for them to watch it. But one of my sisters went to cinema in Australia. She had immigrated there. She watched it, and we had a 10-second conversation about it. She just called me and said, I'm sorry you had to go through it. And then we never talked about it (laughter). Yeah. So I don't expect them to watch this, and I hope they don't. I love them. I love my dad now. I love my mom and my sisters. And I have taken the permission from them to make this film, and I've asked them not to watch this.
RASCOE: Well, you know, who Ali is and what he's made of, that's one of the central themes of this movie. What are you telling the audience about the notions of identity and the self?
KHATAMI: What I'm trying to say is that - look in the mirror. That image is construction. That image is constructed for you. This is not a story that is God-given. We have made that story, and we can change that story if we are willing to listen and hold the life in its mystery. Life is messy. Life is very messy, and that's the beauty of it.
RASCOE: That's Alireza Khatami. His new movie, "The Things You Kill," is out in select theaters now. Thank you so much.
KHATAMI: Thank you so much, Ayesha, for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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