Culture
Three eerie early films from Yorgos Lanthimos
By: Gordon Briggs
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The new dark comedy Bugonia is a strange story about isolation and alienation from prominent director Yorgos Lanthimos. As the director has achieved mainstream success, I want to highlight three earlier films from Lanthimos that prove the filmmaker’s work has lost none of its peculiarity.
Throughout my film travels, I’ve seen some strange families, but the family in Dogtooth has to be the most screwed up family in movie history. Here, a controlling, manipulative father locks his three adult offspring in a state of perpetual childhood by keeping them prisoner within the sprawling family compound. However, as the children’s curiosity about the outside world grows, one of them hatches a plan to escape. Even in this early work, we see Lanthimos’s interest in isolation. Isolated from the real world and ruled over by a manipulative capitalist patriarch, the movie’s dark humor comes from witnessing the household’s odd sexual rituals, sudden acts of brutality, and genuine moments of affection. In all honesty, it’s an unpleasant film to sit through, but I would be lying if I said I ever took my eyes off it. Rating: ★ ★ ★1/2
I’m a little surprised at how successful Lanthimos has been in the States. The dark, surreal satires he directs exemplify cinematic weirdness. My favorite so far is The Lobster, a bizarre “love story” that scalds like acid. Once again, the filmmaker uses dark humor and absurd scenarios to examine loneliness and isolation. Here, we are dropped into a world where single people must find their ideal mate within 45 days or be transformed into an animal of their choice. That premise not only allows The Lobster to create many absurd moments (I dig the hunting party where the prey being hunted are single people), but it also skewers the whole business of curing loneliness as if it were a disease. The result is one of the darkest love stories out there. Rating: ★ ★ ★★
I saw The Killing of a Sacred Deer months ago, and it still sticks with me. The premise is unnerving: A father must kill one of his children or else his whole family will die. Its technical skill is superb: the eerie Mise-en-scène and use of screeching violins on the soundtrack build an incredible amount of tension. However, after having seen a few films where some outside force destroys a rich bourgeois family, I couldn’t help but wonder “why”? Why must we watch a family suffer other than for the sake of arthouse provocation? Maybe the uncertainty is the point. In addition to showing us another wealthy family cocooned by privilege, the film
deliberately avoids easy answers, leaving the audience to question the morality of the situation and the characters’ agonizing decisions in the face of unthinkable circumstances. Rating: ★ ★ ★½