5 Mart 2016 Cumartesi

ARE YOU READY TO BECOME SOMETHING NEW... "THE LOBSTER"

I saw the trailer for The Lobster some time ago. I thought it was categorically the funniest thing I have seen in years. I then, like a muppet, missed in the cinema. I was overjoyed when it came out in VOD and I actually watched it absolutely ages ago, practically on the day it came out. Its director Yorgos Lanthimos is not a household name yet – but he is getting there. And those who HAVE heard of him tend to give a knee jerk YES! Or NO! response. If you haven’t tried him out yet, you really should give his work a whirl – see which camp you end up in!



The Lobster takes place in a dystopian near future. There (as in quite a few places here, as a matter of fact), being a couple is categorically the most important thing you have to achieve in your life. However fewer invitations to dinners and awkward conversations are the least the singletons of this universe have to worry about. If you find you are single, you have 45 days to find a partner. If you fail, you are transformed into an animal of your choice and released into the wild. Now, of course the process in monitored, the moment you report you have become single to the authorities you are transported to a special facility with other singletons where you have to endeavour to find a partner. Our tale follows David (Colin Farrel) who is recently divorced. He has just started his stay in the facility and has a whole world of new characters to meet, make friends with and hopefully date. Oh the whole place looks like a slightly eccentric holiday village, but David is under no illusions. The real question is whether he will survive – and if he does, in what form…


Yorgos Lanthimos is one of those –black and white – kind of directors. You either adore him and, like me, think he is the best thing since moving images on a screen, or think he is crass, extreme and all together hard to watch. His films are definitely not for the faint of heart. In my particular case I found watching Dogtooth (the first film I ever watched by Lanthimos) a weirdly sado-masochistic experience. Yes, definitely hard to watch. Harder than a lot of things I have ever seen in fact. But also weirdly pleasurable… And why? I guess because he has the rather dubious talent of being able to give you the kind of shock the goriest slashers do, only without the gore and blood and in a very innocuous looking setting. And let’s be honest here – it is rare to find the kind of film that gets that kind of visceral response out of you in the day to day cinematic market. I don’t necessarily think it’s a matter of shocking to get publicity and bums on seats. It actually is the job of all art to make you feel things. To make you react. To make you think. There is a little too much playing it safe, a little too much staying within your comfort zone when it comes to films these days I feel. That is sort of why Hollywood films are less of my day to day consumption and more of an occasional treat. I need the films that I watch actually do something to me – and if you are of the same tribe as me I can promise you that The Lobster will smack you around the head  several times and leave you spinning like a top…


Like all of his other films, this universe of Yorgos Lanthimos is unforgiving. The rules are as harsh as they are eccentric and disobedience is really not an option. Well. I say that, but in this universe – as in, I strongly suspect, most others – as long as you give the illusion of going by the rules, you can get away with, well, a certain amount… This, in the film has hilarious results that I will not be discussing here today as a lot of the film counts on the element of surprise to make it work. The film does, however, become a Kafaesque dance where our characters have to apply an endless set of rules to the most intimate areas of their lives. And what makes the film even funnier is the fact that most of us – without being aware of it – do this anyway. You know those little things called social norms we are all so attached to. Yeah… I am willing to bet you any money that you will be giving them a hefty amount of thought after you have watched this little number.


Of course the brilliance of the actors only adds to the success of the dance – Colin Farrel is the perfect slightly bumbling everyman helping us understand this universe as we try to figure it out ourselves. Ably assisted by the likes of John C. Reily, Ben Whishaw and Rachel Weisz who all participate in this straight faced – in fact deadly serious – dance with conviction and gusto that will have you cringing and crying out for them as the story takes its twists and turns…
In short, the first thing Lanthimos does when he takes you into a universe is tear up the rule book, the second is to throw you into the ring at a no-holds-barred cage fight. It is something you definitely need to decide on for yourself – but if you survive the fight, well, the benefits are absolutely glorious…


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