Sumith Prasad
Kindness is often understood or approached as a positive quality, action, or character trait. Individuals who possess it are seen as “good,” while people who lack it are deemed “bad” in our everyday life. Yorgos Lanthimos’ absurdist anthology film ‘Kinds of Kindness’ attempts to deconstruct this generally accepted understanding concerning “kindness.” The narratives of the three short movies that form the film try to make it clear that kindness can exist not only positively but also negatively or outright cruelly. The drama’s title addresses these different types (kinds) of kindness, which can be explored through the relationship between the main characters of each of the three shorts! SPOILERS AHEAD.
Robert Finds Kindness in His Toxic Relationship With Raymond
In the first movie in the anthology, ‘The Death of R.M.F.,’ Raymond is a businessman who controls every aspect of the life of Robert, his employee. The former decides what the latter should eat, whom to share his life with, and when he should have sex with his partner. The dominance Raymond has over Robert is nothing short of toxic and overwhelming. The employee is denied free will and independence, two of the most significant features of modern existence. One may even see the boss as an uncompassionate figure who lacks even a bit of kindness as he exerts his influence on his subordinate, even concerning trivial affairs.
However, Robert only sees kindness in his relationship with Raymond. The employee approaches his life without freedom as disciplined, opulent, and extremely desirable. When his boss abandons him and replaces him with Rita, he misses the former’s influence on his life the most. Raymond sets Robert free to live as he wants, but the independence he garners only makes his life miserable and immersed in loneliness. While we interpret the businessman’s actions as toxic, his employee sees the same as kind. That’s why he even kills a man to get back together with his boss without seeing the evilness present in the crime he commits.
For Robert, kindness exists as control. He wants Raymond to dictate and influence his actions. He does not want to bear the responsibility of living a complex life on his own, which is lonely and exhausting for him. When the businessman finally accepts Robert back, we can see him cuddling with the former and his wife as a baby. He receives a father’s affection from his controlling boss, which challenges the traditional understanding of “kindness.”
Liz Expresses Kindness by Sacrificing Herself
In ‘R.M.F. Is Flying,’ the second short in the anthology, Daniel is convinced that Liz, the woman who returns to his life after a research expedition, is not his wife. Even though she looks and lives exactly like his partner, the police officer cannot accept her as his better half. Thus, he sets out to punish her by barbarously demanding dishes made by her body parts. Even when Daniel hurts her, Liz serves him as a dutiful and kind wife. When he asks for a cauliflower dish prepared with her thumb, she makes it for him. She even confronts her father when he shares his anger toward his son-in-law.
In our day-to-day lives, kindness is not something we associate with cruelty or barbarity. It is often pleasant as far as both the giver and receiver are concerned. Someone who expresses such a quality enhances his/her/their lives as much as the person who is at the receiving end. However, in Liz’s case, her act of kindness involves barbarity. She has to cut her thumb and be subjected to domestic abuse to remain a kind wife. The scientist even loses her apparent unborn baby because she is being kind toward her husband. Ultimately, Daniel makes her remove her liver, which kills her.
Liz dies because she wants to be a kind partner who cooks a nutritious meal for her husband by extracting a vital organ from her body. Her kindness kills her, making us wonder whether the desirable quality can be brutal or deadly. Her actions challenge the accepted understanding that acts of kindness can only pave the way for positive outcomes.
Manipulation is Kindness For Emily
Similar to Robert, Emily finds kindness in Omi and Aka’s manipulation. The leaders of an unnamed sex cult present themselves as God-like figures before their followers, controlling significant aspects of their lives. The two spiritual gurus prevent Emily and the rest of the group from engaging in sex with their partners or spouses, governing their intimate lives. The manipulation may seem toxic and problematic to us, but it is an expression of kindness for Emily. She wants Omi and Aka to control her life and govern her actions.
Emily became an integral part of Omi and Aka’s sex cult after separating herself from a life with her husband and daughter. She sees their guardianship as invaluable, which makes her aspire to return to the community after she is banished from the group. Even after leaving the cult, Emily commits to its mission and sets out to find the person who can bring people back from death. The devoted follower cherishes happiness and dances euphorically when she finds a way to return to the community rather than when she attains freedom. For such a person, kindness is also a kind of dependency.
In all these three narratives, kindness is expressed, perceived, and attained in very non-conventional ways. The particular quality is attached to dominance, cruelty, and manipulation, which are generally seen as negative aspects of life. By presenting these “types/kinds” of kindness, Yorgos Lanthimos’ film asks us whether it can exist without positive attachments.
Read More: Where Was Kinds of Kindness Filmed?
