← Back to Reviews
in
The Lobster, by Yorgos Lanthimos
Another very good film by Yorgos Lanthimos (still far from the excellence of his 2011 movie "Alpeis"), who seems to have found his magic formula for telling good stories.
Again, a distopic society is presented as the perfect canvas to create a disturbing movie filled with grotesque characters that makes you reconsider if companion and love are really as necessary as we like to think. In a world where bachelorhood is not an option, these characters need to fight not only the system, but their own internal conflicts, in order to find an answer other than death (which, as the movie shows, is another valid option). Each character will find different answers to this problem, each more atrocious than the previous one, but every one of them share one thing: a bleak and hideous pain, both physical and spiritual.
I have to admit that I am one of those people who fail to perceive the humorous tone behind Lanthimos' cinema. Yes, there are absurd situations in each of his movies, but they seem to work as isolated narrative elements that help the viewer to swallow all the rawness the Lanthimos presents in front of his/her eyes. Without these comic "disruptions", it seems to me that the process of asimilation of the movie would be too harsh, too unbearable for any decent human being, and the sickness that it would produce would make the experience a personal via crucis. By doing so, Lanthimos confirms his talent for story-telling that he first showed in "Kynodontas" (2009) and wonderfully mastered in "Alpeis" (2011).
Lanthimos' jump to English language has offered him several advantages, especially the remarkable cast of stars that he has used for the movie. Colin Pharrell is very good, and seems to have understood to perfection the ambiguity and coldness of Lanthimos' characters. Rachel Weisz and Lča Seydoux are good, too, although their characters are a little bit framed in convention. The case of the superb greek actress Angeliki Papoulia saddens me deeply, as she is relegated to a residual role and plays a predictable character.
On the other hand, among the disadvantages of Lanthimos' English adventure, I'd highlight the absence of that indifference and coldness that comes so naturally with the accent of Greek language, and that sometimes I found a little unnatural and strained in the English speech of Colin Pharrel, John C. Reilly and, particularly, Rachel Weisz.
All the neat distopic paraphernalia seems to be subject to the main question that Lanthimos is making in The Lobster, which is: "Is love really worth it?", that is, "Is it worth all the pain and suffering that it brings along?". The answer to this question, as is typical with his cinema, is up to the viewer, who will position himself in one extreme or the other, whether they emphazise with Pharrell and Weisz, those self-blinded lovers who would pay any price for true love, or with the loner Lča Seydoux, who decides to fight the institution of love from the distance, with cynism and violence as her only weapons.
A highly recommendable film, both sensorially and intelectually gratifying. It shouldn't have been so overlooked at Cannes.
Another very good film by Yorgos Lanthimos (still far from the excellence of his 2011 movie "Alpeis"), who seems to have found his magic formula for telling good stories.
Again, a distopic society is presented as the perfect canvas to create a disturbing movie filled with grotesque characters that makes you reconsider if companion and love are really as necessary as we like to think. In a world where bachelorhood is not an option, these characters need to fight not only the system, but their own internal conflicts, in order to find an answer other than death (which, as the movie shows, is another valid option). Each character will find different answers to this problem, each more atrocious than the previous one, but every one of them share one thing: a bleak and hideous pain, both physical and spiritual.
I have to admit that I am one of those people who fail to perceive the humorous tone behind Lanthimos' cinema. Yes, there are absurd situations in each of his movies, but they seem to work as isolated narrative elements that help the viewer to swallow all the rawness the Lanthimos presents in front of his/her eyes. Without these comic "disruptions", it seems to me that the process of asimilation of the movie would be too harsh, too unbearable for any decent human being, and the sickness that it would produce would make the experience a personal via crucis. By doing so, Lanthimos confirms his talent for story-telling that he first showed in "Kynodontas" (2009) and wonderfully mastered in "Alpeis" (2011).
Lanthimos' jump to English language has offered him several advantages, especially the remarkable cast of stars that he has used for the movie. Colin Pharrell is very good, and seems to have understood to perfection the ambiguity and coldness of Lanthimos' characters. Rachel Weisz and Lča Seydoux are good, too, although their characters are a little bit framed in convention. The case of the superb greek actress Angeliki Papoulia saddens me deeply, as she is relegated to a residual role and plays a predictable character.
On the other hand, among the disadvantages of Lanthimos' English adventure, I'd highlight the absence of that indifference and coldness that comes so naturally with the accent of Greek language, and that sometimes I found a little unnatural and strained in the English speech of Colin Pharrel, John C. Reilly and, particularly, Rachel Weisz.
All the neat distopic paraphernalia seems to be subject to the main question that Lanthimos is making in The Lobster, which is: "Is love really worth it?", that is, "Is it worth all the pain and suffering that it brings along?". The answer to this question, as is typical with his cinema, is up to the viewer, who will position himself in one extreme or the other, whether they emphazise with Pharrell and Weisz, those self-blinded lovers who would pay any price for true love, or with the loner Lča Seydoux, who decides to fight the institution of love from the distance, with cynism and violence as her only weapons.
A highly recommendable film, both sensorially and intelectually gratifying. It shouldn't have been so overlooked at Cannes.