Lanthimos’s Nimic, on MUBI

If you have to be stalked by a doppelganger, they should at least make an effort to look like you, right? Not necessarily in Yorgos Lanthimos’s world. As a result, he might just be the perfect filmmaker to represent late election-year 2020, when someone might be conspicuously out of place, but people perversely refuse to recognize the obvious. A symphony cellist finds himself the victim of such a phenomenon in Lanthimos’s short film Nimic, which is now streaming on MUBI.

The “Father” thought he had a healthy relationship with his wife and three children. Yet, when the strange woman he encounters on the subway tries to take his place, nobody seems to be able to tell them apart. Yet, they look radically different and her cello player sounds like fingernails on a blackboard.

It turns out Matt Dillon is highly compatible with the idiosyncratic Lanthimos aesthetic. As the Father, he projects an appropriate morose dejection, while still maintaining the extreme deadpan we have come to expect from films like The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Likewise, the crazy eyes of Daphne Patakia’s mimic are truly unsettling, yet she maintains a similarly stoic demeanor.

Lanthimos’ The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Cincinnati is a very livable city, but it will probably never live down the shame from giving the world Jerry Springer. In contrast, a prominent cardio surgeon will be given the chance to repent for his sins through a wicked three-way Sophie’s Choice. The situation is highly surreal, but emotions are scrupulously held in check during Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Killing of a Sacred Deer (trailer here), which is now playing in New York.

Dr. Steven Murphy has it all: a thriving practice, a lovely ophthalmologist wife, a daughter he adores, and a son he is okay with. He is also giving back by spending time mentoring Martin, a disadvantaged teenager—except there might be something more sinister to their relationship. Nonetheless, he introduces Martin to his family, all of whom find the moody lad inexplicably charming—especially his daughter Kim.

Inevitably, Martin starts taking liberties, even attempting to fix Murphy up with his single mother. The doctor tardily tries to re-establish boundaries, but by this time the resentful teen has gained a strange hold over the Murphy family, especially Kim. Unfortunately for them all, Martin blames the Martin patriarch for the death of his father—and not without some justification. More to the point, Martin also seems to have some mystical unexplained power that will force Steven Murphy to become an active accomplice in his own karmic retribution.

Within Lanthimos’ maddening filmography, Sacred Deer is a conspicuously frustrating film. If you were blown away by The Lobster, but detested his Greek Freak films, like Dogtooth and Alps, you will find Sacred Deer sits uneasily between those two poles. Lanthimos manages to wring high tragedy out of his fantastical premise, but getting there is a bumpy ride. Problematically, it features the same extreme expressive reserve that distinguished The Lobster, but it was better suited to that dystopian universe and its absurdist rules everyone accepted at face value. In contrast, Deer is essentially set in our world. It is just viewed from acute angles.

As a result, we have to sit through a lot of mumbling and shrugging, before Lanthimos finally kicks it into gear. Yet, somehow the film mostly comes together during the chilling climax—or maybe almost, but not quite. Either way, it is a close call.

Colin Farrell similarly feels like he is repeating himself from The Lobster, but while his prior sad sack character always seemed to be screaming under his blandly nebbish exterior, Dr. Murphy really comes across as a shallow jerk, who is quiet because he doesn’t have anything to say. Likewise, Nicole Kidman seems to be recycling previous ice queen roles in films like Eyes Wide Shut, Strangerland, and, Heaven help us, Trespass. Frankly, Barry Keoghan’s sullen mouth-breathing makes it hard to believe Doc Murphy would ever bring Martin within one hundred yards of his family. At least, Alicia Silverstone hits some poignant notes while playing against time as Martin’s Mother—wow, Cher from Clueless playing a widowed mom.

Even though we are still wrestling with our misgivings, we would re-watch Sacred Deer five times than sit through just the first fifteen minutes of Alps again. Granted, this is a highly idiosyncratic film, but the ways in which Lanthimos makes it conform to the aesthetics of The Lobster actually work against it. Earning a deeply mixed review, The Killing of a Sacred Deer is still the sort of weirdness cult film fans need to see to keep current. Use your own judgment. It is now playing in New York, at the Regal Union Square downtown and the AMC Loews Lincoln Square uptown.

The Lobster: Yorgos Lanthimos Gets Dystopian

Evidently, the future will be a lot like Logan’s Run, but for single people. Those who marry and nest together have no worries, but the unpaired will be transformed into animals and released into the wild. It is an extreme dystopian system, but it has its own strange logic. However, desperation will force one unmatched sad sack to think outside the box in Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos’s beyond-category English language allegory The Lobster (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

After his wife absconds with another man. David must check into a “last resort” resort for singletons, where he will have forty-five days to find a mate or he be transmuted into a lobster, as per his preference. Obviously, the stakes are high, as he is constantly reminded by his brother Bob, who now accompanies him as his faithful German Shepherd (a Palm Dog Award winner at the Cannes Film Festival). Unfortunately, David is not good at flirting. However, difficult cases, such as his even more desperate friend, “The Man with the Lisp,” can extend their stays by one day for each renegade “loner” living in the surrounding forest they can bag with the resort provided tranquilizer guns.

Oh, but Lanthimos is just getting started. David will pursue a match with “The Heartless Woman,” hoping she will mistake his awkward aloofness for a similar misanthropy. When that strategy fails, he will go off the grid with the loners, but their rigid social conventions might be even trickier to navigate.

The Lobster is a deliriously bizarre film, but Lanthimos presents it all so matter-of-factly, we are compelled to suspend disbelief and just roll with it. There are vaguely identifiable precursors to some of Lobsters’ madness, like the ticking clock of the aforementioned Logan’s Run and the resort itself, which is not so very different from the Village in The Prisoner. Nonetheless, Lanthimos incorporates them in inventive and intriguing ways into a sly and subversive script (co-written with Efthymis Filippou) that keeps evolving in unexpected directions. This is not the sort of speculative film that starts with an intriguing premise, but continues to mine the same vein with diminishing returns. Lanthimos has plenty of stuff held in reserve for the third act.

Colin Farrell is wonderfully pathetic as David. It is truly an anti-star turn that is even more taciturn, fatalistic, and world-weary than his fine work in Ondine, Miss Julie, and London Boulevard. Yet, develops some truly unique romantic chemistry with Rachel Weisz, the “Short Sighted Woman” he meets amongst the band of Loners. Léa Seydoux is quietly ferocious as the fanatical Loner Leader, but nobody can approach the level of nuts attained by Olivia Colman as the resort manager.

Frankly, The Lobster is like a breath of fresh air, presenting a wholly unique dystopian vision at a time when multiplexes are drowning in neo-fascist-jumpsuit-donning YA near future romances. No sir, this is not like those. It is its own animal, if you will. There are sequences that will have you staring at the screen slack-jawed, which is a good thing. By far Lanthimos best work yet, The Lobster is highly recommended for adventurous genre and art house patrons, when it opens this Friday (5/13) in New York at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ Alps

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.

The auteur responsible for the Oscar-nominated Dogtooth, Lanthimos is a filmmaker with a burgeoning international reputation, whose work has to be taken into account by anyone seriously following the world cinema scene.  Still, that does not make Alps anymore fun to watch.  A coldly detached detour into a postmodern blind alley, Alps never makes good on the promise of its legitimately intriguing premise.  Recommended exclusively for Lanthimos’ stalwart champions, Alps opens today (7/13) in New York at the Cinema Village.