Alps (Giorgos Lanthimos)

ALPS
Director: Giorgos Lanthimos

IMDb link

http://i.imgur.com/dG3n6.jpg

Still not entirely sure what to think of this. Each time I've written about it my opinion has been different. It feels like a step forward for Lanthimos in certain regards (formally, esp) and expectations for more Dogtooth magic might've clouded my initial judgement, but I'm struggling to remember much of it. 2nd viewing should help, I think.

I'm not quite sure what to think of it either, but I'm leaning towards ever-so-slightly positive, even if I consider it a disappointment after Dogtooth, enough to wonder if Dogtooth was really that great.

The premise to Alps is really interesting, but I don't feel like Lanthimos explored it enough, or when things started to get interesting, the movie ended. The nurse character was obviously the most fleshed out, but the other three were a bit sketchy to me (especially the gymnast girl).

That said, these Greeks definitely have a pretty unique "thing" going on (I haven't seen Attenberg yet).

Mild yay. But yeah a pretty big disappointment coming off of Dogtooth.

This also just hit dvd by the way.

I wish that the Netflix synopsis, which I barely scanned over, didn't spoil a conceit that should really be received without foreknowledge, though I was thankfully unprepared for how it develops into an immensely clever and sneakily affecting inversion of Dogtooth. That said, the shock moments of sudden violence are becoming an increasingly tired trope in this brand of art cinema, and I'm not convinced that Lanthimos' formal approach works as rigorously in this context as it previously did; whether it necessarily needs to however is perfectly debatable.

This has to be, without a doubt, one of the strangest movies I have ever seen.

not any stranger than Dogtooth..

Greek cinema, yo.

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Originally Posted by Rowland

That said, the shock moments of sudden violence are becoming an increasingly tired trope in this brand of art cinema, and I'm not convinced that Lanthimos' formal approach works as rigorously in this context as it previously did

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That's how I felt while watching this. The last twenty minutes in particular felt like a parade of arthouse cliches. I thought Dogtooth was a much more successful and also more formally accomplished film for that reason. Like the scene of the nurse being expelled from the group, just the way Lanthimos frames it and directs his actors, and the temporal pause, smacks of obviousness. Part of that is also because of the speech beforehand; I don't know if the subtitles on my copy were just generally poor or if the dialogue was just that insipid (again, weird, given how carefully constructed and brilliant the dialogue seemed in Dogtooth). The scene of Mount Blanc deciding on a name for the group didn't make any sense, either. The whole metaphor at the center of this thing seems nonsensical.

Rowland, how did you see it as an inversion of Dogtooth? I have to admit, the way Mount Blanc controls his group, and the hermetic nature of their group and rituals, made the whole thing feel like Dogtooth-lite, which added to my general indifference and disappointment. The only thing that comes to mind is the character arc of the nurse, who spirals downward into a sort of hermetic abyss of utter identity loss and punishment/ritualization (whereas the daughter in Dogtooth escaped to freedom and the outside world and death), but that's also where I felt the film stumbled the most (going back to my earlier comment about there being no interesting payoff at the end, only arthouse cliches).

I will say that the humor was every bit as successful as it was in Dogtooth, though (even if there didn't seem to be as much of it).

"Her favorite actor is Jude Law" made me laugh harder than any comedy I saw last year. No offense to Jude Law.

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Originally Posted by plain

not any stranger than Dogtooth..

Greek cinema, yo.

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I think it's actually stranger than Dogtooth

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Originally Posted by Stay Puft

Rowland, how did you see it as an inversion of Dogtooth?

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It's obviously the opposite gimmick, no? Dogtooth is about people desperately trying to escape a fake world, while Alps is about people desperately trying to escape reality.

Well, I guess. That's more or less what I summized in my post though as I explained it also just felt like Dogtooth-lite when I was watching it. Dogtooth made sense to me but Alps just seems nonsensical.