Steven asserts his power in kidnapping and brutalising Martin, but refuses to make a decision. As it becomes clear that he has to choose, Steven is unable to make that choice. The three members of his family are each forced to petition him, to reason with him, to barter with him. Steven tries repeatedly to take the decision out of his own hands. He even visits children’s school, to awkwardly ask their principal to choose between them. “If you had to pick one.” Steven abhors having to make a choice, and so instead allows the situation to escalate further.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer makes it clear that Steven’s impotence is not situational. It is not a response to this horrific set of circumstances. There is some sense that the family have grown to expect this powerless indecisiveness from Steven. While Anna tends to her children in the hospital, Kim cusses at her. Anna responds by confiscating Kim’s phone, which is decisive gesture. “I’m not like your father,” Anna warns Kim. She is correct. Anna is much more decisive than Steven, even though she doesn’t hold any power in this particular situation.
Steven plays out a pantomime of violent male aggression to soothe his sense of inadequacy, but consciously avoids wrestling with any of the real issues underlying this situation. As Steven ruminates and meditates, Anna tries to find an answer to this crisis. Anna asks questions, digs up secrets, petitions Martin. Although it is immediately clear that torturing Martin will accomplish nothing, it is Anna who eventually decides to release him.
As the situation reaches a critical phase, Martin acknowledges the dynamic at play. He understands that Steven is unlikely to reach a decision on his own terms, and so speaks directly to the more proactive Anna. “Anna, if you’re going to do something, better do it fast. The boy is about to die.”
Martin is a similarly indecisive masculine figure. He clearly holds a great deal of power in his hands. He seems to grant Kim the power to walk at one point in the film. However, he also refuses to use that power. Like Steven, Martin declines to make choices and decisions. This whole situation is part of Martin’s desire to avenge himself upon Steven, but he defers his decision to Steven. Martin cannot choose which member of Steven’s family to kill, Steven must choose that himself.
Martin excuses his violence against the Murphy family in broad philosophical terms. When discussing the situation with Steven, Martin explains that his grand plan is “to balance things out.” He reiterates his position in a later conversation with Anna, “I don’t know if what is happening is fair, but it’s the only thing I can think of that is close to justice.” In keeping with the film’s wedding of religious themes to masculine authority, Martin tries to paint his own indecisiveness in terms of a universal justice. To Martin, there is no choice involved; there is only balance.
Of course, The Killing of a Sacred Deer understands that this impotence is by choice. Steven and Martin are consciously choosing to disengage from the consequences of their actions. These notions of “justice” and “balance” are simply excuses. They are a mechanism by which Steven and Martin might avoid having to confront the consequences of their decisions. If there is no choice, there is no blame.
Impotence becomes a mechanism by which these men might avoid responsibility.
“A surgeon never kills a patient. An anesthesiologist can kill a patient, but a surgeon never can.”
And so The Killing of a Sacred Deer returns to the image of the surgeon’s hands, particularly as divorced from the consequences of their actions. The movie opens with those shots emphasising the importance of those hands, the role that they play in surgery. However, Steven tries to stand apart from all of that.
Repeatedly over the course of The Killing of a Sacred Deer, characters make reference to Steven’s hands. “You have lovely hands,” observes Martin’s mother. “So white and soft and clean.” Later, Martin remarks upon Steven’s “clean, nice, beautiful hands.” Anna turns this into an accusation over dinner. “People keep telling me what nice hands you have.” Steven works very hard to ensure that those hands remain unstained.
Walking out of surgery with his anesthesiologist colleague Matthew, Steven’s first line (and the first line of the film) serves to illustrate the cognitive dissonance between the work that Steven does with his hands and how he thinks of those hands. “Nice watch,” Steven reflects, in that deadpan matter-of-fact manner that defines so many of the casual interactions over the course of The Killing of a Sacred Deer.
16 CinÉireann / November 2017