Greek helmer Yorgos Lanthimos made his first feature film in 2001, but it wasn’t until last year that he gained greater attention with his Oscar nominated film Dogtooth, a stunning feature that takes a particularly unique look at the evolution of child rearing. The film immediately put the director on the industry’s radar, which in turn added extra attention on his follow-up Alps, which is just now hitting the film festival circuit, two years after Dogtooth won the Un Certain Regard at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Unfortunately, while carrying a somewhat intriguing idea, the film falls flat, thinking it’s far more interesting than it actually is.
Four nameless characters — a nurse (Aggeliki Papoulia), paramedic (Arus Servetalis) and a gymnast (Ariane Labed) and her coach (Johnny Vekris) — make up a group they refer to as “Alps.” This group offers something of an unusual approach to grief counseling, serving as substitutes for the deceased in an effort to help friends and family with the grieving process. Considering their leader is a paramedic and one of their primary employees is a nurse, it makes acquiring clients relatively easy. However, this is a job not without pitfalls.
Focusing primarily on the story of the nurse, we watch as she loses her identity. As members of this group the “employees” are expected to follow a strict set of rules as laid down by their leader. The nurse, however, has grown fond of one particular case, a case that may soon prove her downfall.
Alps is delivered similarly to Dogtooth in that it reveals itself in layers, attempting to draw the viewer into this scenario slowly until you’re accustomed to the organization’s modus operandi and along the way realize where the nurse has gone wrong. And inside of this process there is a strange tone to the feature that had some members of my audience laughing at what could be considered absurd, but I viewed as extremely sad.
The loss of a friend or family member is a traumatic moment in our lives, especially if you’re grieved to the point you would consider hiring someone to stand in for them. The Alps organization works closely with its clients in an attempt to perfect details, remember moments and re-enact them so the client can slowly relieve any residual grief. Where the humor is in that I’m not sure and if Lanthimos meant for it to be comical I just can’t get on board.
The ambiguity of the film’s tone is the least of its problems. In fact, tonally it’s consistent throughout and can thusly be looked at as a dramatic piece or a dark comedy, either way will work. Where the film actually stumbles is that it just isn’t that the idea behind it isn’t interesting enough on its own to sustain a feature film, and the story of the nurse isn’t enough to elevate the idea too far beyond its roots. I’m of the opinion Lanthimos feels he’s mining some deep territory here, but for the most part it feels rather straight to the point and I wasn’t captivated to such an extent I found any reason to delve much further.
I will applaud the cinematography from Christos Voudouris even though I found inconsistencies to his approach that often kept the Alps clients blurred in the background while focusing on the Alps employee in the foreground. It’s a very interesting approach to the material, but would have been more effective had it not appeared to be used at random. They could have kept the clients in clear focus during their first session and slowly blurring them deeper into the background as they grew increasingly at peace with their loss. Unfortunately that’s not the case, which keeps it from being an addition to the narrative and more of an artistic choice. This isn’t a problem, it just doesn’t help the film in ways that it could have.
Overall, it feels like a step backward in terms of quality, but Lanthimos proves to still be a risk taker when it comes to his material. This is far from a traditional narrative and I remain curious about any future films he may deliver.
