Alps

Four people meet in a gymnasium, a paramedic a gymnast, her coach, and a nurse. They decide on a name for their group, ‘Alps’ and each is given the name of one of the Swiss mountains, for example the groups autocratic leader, the paramedic, takes Mont Blanc for his moniker. The reason for the existence of this organisation is to provide a service for paying customers, with members of the group acting the part of the recently deceased for relatives and friends for a few hours per week in order to ease the bereaved into letting go. For an hourly rate they impersonate a beloved daughter, lost lover or in one case a cheating spouse of a blind woman.

 

The Gymnast.

Devotees of Yorgos Lanthimos the Athens born filmmaker, theatre director and writer will not find this wee synopsis strange at all. Lanthimos was involved in 2009’s Dogtooth, as director, and as co-producer and actor in 2010’s Attenberg two wonderfully unique Greek movies that should not be missed. The director’s latest movie Alps (2011) stars Aggeliki Papoulia (Dogtooth) as the nurse and the Greek born French actress Ariane Labed (Attenberg) as the gymnast, both superbly underlining Lanthimos’s depiction of Greek societies view and treatment of women. It’s a film where it difficult to distinguish between reality and the groups play-acting, is it really the nurses father or just another job? It also includes unconventional references to American pop and movie culture! But all three films mentioned have two thing’s in common: make believe and how poeple yearn after relationships no matter how force and meaningless.

 

The Nurse comforts the bereaved.

In interviews Lanthimos has revealed that the film was made on a restricted budget with limited technical means and lacked any form of state support, conditions obviously not helped by the Greece’s financial crisis. But what he has made is an unemotional, opaque film that’s strangely watchable.

Attenberg

Just another silly walk!

Athina Rachel Tsangari was the producer on another brilliantly innovative and startlingly different Greek film, Yorgos Lanthimos’s award winning Dogtooth (2009) on this occasion she is the director, co-producer (with Lanthimos) and writer of the screenplay. Attenberg (2010) takes its title from the misspelling of the main protagonist’s favourite natural history TV presenter David Attenborough, the film, which, amongst other things, demonstrates the relationship between its characters and the animal kingdom! A strange statement I agree, but one that fits the aesthetics of the movie.

Whats this slug in my mouth?

The director made the following statement about her coming of age/black comedy/drama: ‘I made a film about four people who happen to be in the same place for a short period of time. Three people who become four and then two. Three of course, being the perfect number in any relationship’ I will attempt to try and explain the statement by giving you some idea of what the films about. Marina (Ariane Labed) is a virgin with a mental age somewhat younger than her 23 years. She lives with her father Spyros (Vangelis Mourikis) with whom she has an unusual relationship, one which is non sexual but leaves no room for a mother figure. Spyros, an architect who does not appear to have any friends, is receiving treatment for a non-specified disease; we learn that he does not have very long to live. Discussions take place between him and Marina about his funeral arrangements that are complicated because his wishes include being cremated and Greece does not allow this. They also spend time discussing Marina’s sexual naivety. The third person is Bella (Evangelia Randou), Marina’s sexually active best friend with whom she has a somewhat erotic relationship and who is giving her sex education lessons, which as the film opens we observe an hilarious lesson in kissing with tongues! Both, dressed identically, take part in what can only be described as ‘silly walks’ Monty Python style.  Marina’s sex education is very much advanced when she meets the fourth person in our quartet, a visiting engineer (Yorgos Lanthimos) at the local industrial plant.

A 'hands' on sex education lesson. 

With its simplistic camera movements and shots, abrasive soundtrack provided by the electro-punk duo Suicide, and its quirky 1960’s feel, it was shot in Aspra Spitia a town in the Corinthian Gulf which was architecturally designed and built in the sixties, there is something very appealing about this minimalist movie. A wonderful wee film that wet’s your appetite for further works from both Lanthimos and Tsangari.