Preview Screening: The Killing of a Sacred Deer

The Killing of a Sacred Deer starts its regular run at the ICA beginning 3 November

Yorgos Lanthimos is currently one of most distinctive voices of European cinema. Part of a new generation of talented Greek filmmakers, Lanthimos has consistently displayed through his previous works (Kinetta, Dogtooth, Alps, The Lobster - all showing at ICA from 4 November) a craft rarely matched in contemporary world cinema. Lanthimos presents a rich and distinctive array of rigorously composed and socially aware films that transcends the national boundaries and financial difficulties experienced by other artists emerging from Greece within the last 10 to 15 years.

His latest outstanding cinematic achievement, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, is demonic and suffocating in both structure and frame composition, displaying a character development and narrative structure that is never banal. Steven, a charismatic surgeon, is forced to make an unthinkable sacrifice after his life starts to fall apart, when the behaviour of a teenage boy he has taken under his wing turns sinister. As all Lanthimos' works, this is a reflection on the concept of family, justice and moral values perceived by social norms rather than from the filmmaker's point of view.

With visual echoes of Stanley Kubrick and an impeccable sense of storytelling enhanced by surreal dialogue and Greek tragedy (Agamemnon and Medea were confronted with decisions equally impossible to bear), the film is a modern take on the myth of Iphigenia. The Killing of a Sacred Deer lingers way after its cinematic end.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos, UK 2017, 121 mins