Alps (Giorgos Lanthimos, 2011): Greece

Reviewed by Angel Martinez. Viewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival.

When Dogtooth, the Oscar nominated film by Greek director, Giorgos Lanthimos, came out last year, it seemed everyone had to something to say about it. Some praised the film for how daring it was, while others criticized it for trying too hard and being pretentious. His latest film, Alps, I’m sure will cause just as much commotion this year. About a little more than halfway through the film, the lady sitting directly behind me seemed to no longer be able to tolerate this film. In a voice that sounded both offended and disgusted, she declared to her husband, “This is the worst movie I have ever seen!” and quickly left the movie soon afterwards. It seems that with a Lanthimos film one can either love or hate, there is no in between.

The film revolves around a group of people, who we only know through nicknames from the mountains of the Alps, and who offer the service of transforming themselves into individuals that one has lost, which entails things such as dressing like the person, getting gestures down, and dating their lovers. Out of this group, the primary focus is on a female character, played by Aggeliki Papoulia, (who was in Dogtooth), and who like the rest of them, seems to live a very ordinary and empty life outside of the group. She lives with her father and takes care of him, and spends her remaining time working at a hospital during the daytime, where she often meets a lot of these grief stricken people who cannot cope with the loss of their loves ones.

There are definitely parallels between this film and the director’s previous film, specifically the idea that he plays with, of individuals in closed environments. While the father in Dogtooth forced his family to live off in a separate world, the people in Alps choose to separate themselves from society willingly, and do so as a way of evading and coping with reality. Throughout the film there is a constant reference to pop culture, with characters asking each other who their favorite actors and a scene where the woman who works at the hospital reads a Winona Ryder interview to an elderly lady woman she is taking care of, only reinforcing this idea of evading reality, and again noting that these characters live through others. It seems that they need to live through others just as much as the ones who have lost need it.

The acting and humor recalls Todd Solondz’s films with acting that carries a deadpan approach, and humor that arises from how ridiculous and absurd the current situation the character is in. This movie is both hilarious and sad. There is a fine line in this film between comedy and tragedy, just as in Todd Solondz’s movies where half of the audience is laughing with the characters and the other half is laughing at the characters.

While it is easy to see this film from a distance and regard it as plainly ridiculous, and absurd, it deals with emotions that we all have, but the director has managed to stretch these emotions to an extreme almost disguising them. It shows the desperation that arises out of emotions such as loneliness, boredom, and the act of grieving. This film will not be in everyone’s taste, but if it strikes a chord it will ring.