Essential Killing Review

• 14th Jul 2011

Jerzy Skolimowski’s Essential Killing opens with what may or may not be an ‘essential killing’ – is Vincent Gallo’s Mohammed really a terrorist, or simply aware that he’s likely to be mistaken for one and terrified of the consequences if he is, and therefore prepared to kill several American soldiers to avoid capture?

After Mohammed’s rendition from his (unnamed) Middle Eastern homeland to an unnamed country somewhere in Europe, Essential Killing declares its colours: this is not a political thriller at all, but a fable about the big themes; the value we put on our lives and what it means to be human. To preserve ourselves at any cost, even if that means committing murder, necessarily implies that we assume we have more intrinsic value than those we encounter. As Mohammed escapes from his captors and flees into the frozen forests, the film takes on a decidedly fairy tale air.

There are threads of other films to be recognised here (The Road, The Piano, and, God help me, The Grapes of Wrath spring immediately to mind) but I’ve not seen a film quite like Essential Killing before.

As Mohammed, Gallo offers up a mesmerising performance (his face upon seeing his first ever moose is quite something). But ultimately this is not an actor’s film: Skolimowski seems more preoccupied with filming the beautiful frozen landscape and exploring where desperation will take a person in their quest to survive. On that level, the film is a success but it is not emotionally engaging. At the point where Mohammed started attacking civilians I found my sympathy for, and engagement with, the protagonist waning. Despite final scenes depicting simple acts of human kindness, I was left feeling as cold as the alien landscape that Mohammed finds himself in.

Clare Moody