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Killing Strangers

Name: Killing Strangers
Director: Jacob Secher Schulsinger, Nicolás Pereda
Released: 2013
Duration: 63 min

Representation Score

6.5/10

Good

2013

Director

Jacob Secher Schulsinger, Nicolás Pereda

Runtime

63 minutes

Average Rating

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New Showbiz Analysis

Killing Strangers challenges stable historical and social identities through a fragmented storytelling approach. It deconstructs the myth of the revolutionary hero by presenting aggression as a rehearsed gesture within a domestic setting. While it provides a nuanced critique of Western historical narratives, it lacks specific representation of physical or neurodivergent disabilities.

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Category Breakdown

Does Killing Strangers have LGBTQ+ representation?

Fair

The film explores identity through improvisation and performance, avoiding rigid heterosexual norms by focusing on non-traditional social roles.

How does Killing Strangers portray gender?

Good

Masculinity is portrayed as a theatrical construct rather than an inherent trait, with aggressive gestures framed within a domestic setting to deconstruct traditional male authority.

How racially and ethnically diverse is Killing Strangers?

Good

Using the Mexican Revolution, the film explores historical ability to act through a fragmented, nuanced perspective, avoiding monolithic ethnic portrayals.

How does Killing Strangers represent religion and culture?

Excellent

The film critiques institutionalized history and collective myths, emphasizing a skeptical morality that challenges Western historical narratives.

Does Killing Strangers include disability representation?

Minimal

There is no specific evidence regarding the portrayal of physical or neurodivergent disabilities. The narrative focus remains on performance and improvisation rather than disability.

Present on Screen

Challenges traditional masculine archetypes by presenting aggression as a rehearsed, theatrical gesture.
Offers a nuanced critique of Western historical narratives and revolutionary myths.
Avoids romanticized portrayals of ethnic struggle through a fragmented, realistic historical lens.

Limited or Absent

Lacks explicit representation or narrative focus regarding physical or neurodivergent disabilities.
Does not provide clear, explicit depictions of queer intimacy or specific LGBTQ+ identities.

Official Synopsis

A series of auditions is taking place in a museum-like living room. Various men improvise or deliver prepared lines, rehearse gestures and slogans, aim guns, and collapse as if mortally wounded. The theme of revolution is repeatedly invoked. In between, there are scenes of a desert landscape. Three men seeking to join the Mexican Revolution at the beginning of the last century have lost their way. Conflicts smolder among them, water is running low, and mutual mistrust is beginning to take hold. Placing the reenactment of a possible historical event alongside the preparations for it serves to underline the theatricality of every cinematic account of history. Moreover, on a kind of playful meta-meta-level, the scenes in which the actors feel their way through set pieces from a Beatles song or standard battle slogans allow the viewer to witness the simultaneous construction and deconstruction of a collective myth of revolution.

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