Indeed, early in the film, there seems to be a struggle for dominance between Steven and Martin, a fight to determine which will absorb the other into their family unit. Steven invites Martin to dinner with his own family. Steven even suggests that Martin could stay, if he wants. He could sleep in Bob’s room and hang out with Kim in the morning. Steven seems to be fantasising about incorporating Martin into his own family, absorbing Martin as a surrogate son figure under his patriarchal authority.
Martin refuses the invitation to stay the night, to make himself at home at the Murphy residence. Instead, he responds with something of a counter-offer. Martin invites Steven for dinner with his widowed mother. He creates a family dynamic, even forcing Steven to stay to watch Groundhog Day with mother and son. When Martin retires, his mother makes a romantic move on Steven. Steven refuses her sexual advances. Martin attempts to sooth the situation, suggesting that Steven could move in with them, that Steven could be absorbed into the Lang family.
Later in the film, Martin elaborates upon his plan. Talking to Steven’s wife, Anna, Martin explains that he will be leaving home soon. Martin seems to have imagined that Steven could become the patriarch of the Lang family in his absence. In his own warped way, Martin believes himself to be providing for his emotionally fragile mother. “She helps me with lots of things,” Martin confesses to Steven early in the film. More ambiguously, he adds, “I help her too.” The film is structured in such a way that Steven’s refusal to assume that role within the Lang family is treated as the insult that spurs Martin’s vengeance.
This theme of masculine authority within the traditional familial unit runs through the length and breadth of the film. Addressing Bob in Steven’s absence, Martin reflects that the youngest member of the Murphy family is “a man. Man of the house now that [his] father isn’t home.”
The Killing of a Sacred Deer goes even further than this. The movie repeatedly ties this notion of patriarchal power back to ideas of religion. The film implies on several occasions that Martin might actually be a god, at least in the classical sense. After all, the film is decidedly ambiguous on the particulars of his power over the Murphy clan. The script makes a point to account for any pseudo-scientific explanation for the strange affliction that strikes down Bob and Kim, suggesting that Martin is supernatural in nature.
Indeed, the film cheekily suggests this notion in an early scene within the Lang home. Steven and Martin are watching Groundhog Day, which is Martin’s favourite movie. As the scene plays out, audio from that film can be heard on the soundtrack. “You’re not a god,” protests Rita during one of her dates with Phil. Phil responds, “How you know I’m not a god?”
The Killing of a Sacred Deer is infused with this religious imagery. Yorgos Lanthimos largely films the movie on location at the Christ Hospital in Cincinnati. For a film so rooted in abstract morality, The Killing of a Sacred Deer has a very strong sense of place. Signage and branding frequently appears in shot, as if to affirm that this story in unfolding within the real world. Given how the camera zooms very slowly through these corridors, lingers on its glass surfaces and pans down the escalators, the Christ Hospital is arguably as much a co-star as Colin Farrell or Barry Keoghan. Similarly, Kim and Bob attend an explicitly Christian school.
At the same time, the female characters frequently interact with these patriarchal authorities as if addressing divinity. This makes sense. Over the course of The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Anna and Kim discover that their lives are resting in the hands and the decisions of Steven and Martin. However, their submission is coded in explicitly religious terms. Anna venerates herself before Martin and kisses his feet, evoking the Sinful Woman from Luke 7:37-38. At various points in the film, Kim boldly professes her unquestioning devotion and love to both Martin and Steven, with a mania bordering on religious. “You gave me life and only you have the right to take that life away,” Kim pleads to her father. “I love you more than anything in the world.” In neither case is Kim’s devotion even acknowledged; it is largely met with silence.
After all, if these male authority figures in The Killing of a Sacred Deer are gods, then they are silent and indecisive deities.
14 CinÉireann / November 2017