The
spirit of enterprise is not completely dead in Greece. It just manifests itself self in peculiarly
dark ways. A nameless quartet has joined
forces to provide a strange service.
They act as stand-ins for recently deceased loved ones. However, matters get decidedly complicated
when one member starts freelancing in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Alps (trailer
here), which
opens today in New York.
They
call themselves “Alps,” because those mountains often substitute for other ranges
in films and TV. Actually, it would be
more accurate to say their leader, “Mount Blanc,” calls them Alps. He is definitely the one running a show. Mount Blanc the paramedic and his nurse
colleague are obviously well placed to prospect for new clients. Mount Blanc thinks the parents of a teenaged
tennis player not expected to survive an auto accident look like promising
candidates, but the nurse decides she wants to take them on solo.
This
is a clear violation of the Alps’ rules.
It also hardly seems practical. The student gymnast (Alps member #3)
would be a much better surrogate for the couples’ daughter. Yet, nobody seems to worry about resemblances
or even rudimentary acting ability when employing the troupe. Simply having a warm body in place of the late
family member is apparently sufficient.
Just how well did these people know their dearly beloved? This is an especially apt question for the
couple the nurse hijacks, given the not so subtle clues we are given regarding
their relationship with their daughter.
Of
course, there are not a lot of healthy relationships in Alps, whether it is the less than encouraging coach (Alps member
#4) imperiously overseeing the gymnast’s training, or the increasingly erratic
nurse, whose inappropriate overtures to her father he sternly rebukes. Clearly, Lanthimos will spare the audience
little.
Alps is one of those
densely compacted films that rather asks for excessive interpretation. Yes, the line between role-playing and
self-delusion can be slippery and identity is a persistently problematic notion. Nonetheless, sometimes a cigar is really a
cigar and not a class conscious statement on Euro-austerity. In a way, Alps
is somewhat akin to David Lynch at his most indulgent, but even Lost Highway gave viewers the trappings
of a genre picture to hold onto. Instead,
Alps is mostly a series of
uncomfortable episodes, ostensibly rife with significance, produced with an
oppressively institutional color palette.
