Alireza Khatami Interview On The Things You Kill | “Stories Don’t Have Passports”

In developing countries, thinking is often expected to be translation. The one who thinks is the one who can read the West well. In our region of the world, the West is the figure of the father, the colonial, the one who decides for you, sets the rules and regulations, dictates what’s best for you while exploiting you. This problematic notion is very much in order with Spivak’s words when she asks whether the subaltern can speak. I wanted to challenge the notion of translation. In order to build a new framework, you’ve to kill the original and give it birth in a new condition. With the resurrection comes the ghost. Here I recall the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben who speaks of hauntology. The cost of it is to live with the ghost. In the film, you see Ali who returns from the West with these ideas of a liberated feminist. But then he looks at the mirror and it’s terrifying. The process is coming to terms with this complex world.

In facing the world, Ali finds itself in crisis, masculinity in crisis. For me, the very definition of masculinity is in crisis. It only grounds itself when there’s some overlap with femininity. I’m talking about the philosophy of masculinity. When Ali finally dreams the dreams, he’s grounded. That’s when the ghosts are coming back. The way forward is never through violence. It’s empathy. It’s a difficult act, but the only task.

When we talk of patriarchy, everyone and everything is subjected to it. Not even animals are spared. The sisters don’t choose violence. Women have known it far earlier than men that a violent response only exacerbates it further. As traditional as it sounds, to cope with the system, women are the pioneers and messengers of change. Ali learns significantly from them when one says it’s easy to be angry with the father but the real challenge is to live with them.

The most dangerous thing to a woman is their partner. Men have no way forward but through violence. They do it to their closest ones. It’s a crisis of the patriarchal framework that hasn’t taught men to be vulnerable. Look at the words we use in the English language. The language of achievement is of violence. When we say do well, we say go kill it. We celebrate it through language. This is the contaminated discourse we live through, irrespective of geographical location.

In Persian poetry, the metaphor of self is the mirror. It’s a very well-established one that goes back by eight hundred years. The film is about self-negotiation. The moment the subject cracks and he has to look at himself, we go into the mirror. The entire film happens in the mirror. When he finally stands on his feet, he sees the world and we come out of the mirror. The entire second act is frantically inside the mirror, an act of reflection. In the history of cinema, we’ve used the descent into the mirror, but not quite as self-negotiation.

I didn’t write the scene out of focus. It’s one of the hardest confessions I’ve done and it comes from a personal place. I had no idea how to shoot it. I’d seen The Graduate where the focus puller was a second late. I thought it’s a wonderful tool and I’ll push it thirty seconds. My cinematographer was afraid. My producers insisted to take another shot. But I needed some privacy for the character. Finally, he’s ready to face the questioning as to why he returned home. As he works through a fog of memory and he realizes why he left, we come to focus. It’s the best shot I’ve ever done. In the hands of the wrong actor, it could have gone wrong. Ekin Koç trusted me deeply. He told me he’ll deliver it cold. I love cinema where form and content merge. Who’s doing the performance? Is it the camera or the actor?

I went to Iran to shoot the film. Two weeks prior to shoot, the censorship office withdrew permission. They wanted me to remove the scene of the killing of the father. That’s impossible. I’m from a Turkic tribe and I’m an indigenous person from the southwest of Iran. We speak a form of Turkish but it’s different from Turkey. I understand about fifteen to thirty percent. Culturally, Turkey felt the most feasible option. It has wonderful actors and deals with same questions as patriarchy and the killing of women. I didn’t want to do something like an Iranian guy going to Turkey and making it look like Iran. I’ve made films in different languages. I invite the land, here’s my pain, take a piece of it and make it your own. They made the film Turkish.

This is a wonderful step taken by Canadian film society. Stories don’t have passports. I’m humbled we break this barrier. We had a wonderful reaction from non-white communities. I hope the Oscar becomes more and more about the art of filmmaking. I love that quote by the American war photographer, James Nachtwey, “every story doesn’t have to sell something. There’s also a time to give”. I’m deeply humbled by the selection.

It weighs on me all the time! There’s an unimaginable pressure on the cultural side that I have to tell an Iranian story. Festivals constantly try to make you the agent of their policies. The West embraces any film subtly Islamophobic or that questioning the Islamic Republic of Iran to show their moral superiority. What about the genocide, the atrocities on Palestine they have been supporting for the past two years? I’ve zero respect for what Cannes and Berlin did to the Palestinians. Suddenly, Cannes is like they aren’t political. Wasn’t it when Jafar Panahi went to jail, or during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? When it comes to Palestinians, they’re non-political. This will be a stain on the history of those festivals.

I have to find the core structure of the script. Once the script is in the hands of people who will raise finances for its making, I start to rewrite. Personally, rewriting never ends until you’re on set. I do an entire rewrite as per locations. I reworked the entire garden scenario. Once I cast, I rewrite.

I’ve been outside Iran for many years. In the past twenty-one years, I’ve visited once. These are choices you make in life. Wherever I reside, criticism of policies affects life.

I’ve been consumed by the Oscar campaign but I’m developing my first English-language feature to be shot in Canada. That’s another challenging storytelling adventure.