Last modified on Thu 6 May 2021 11.58 EDT
Here is an enigmatically quirky Greek film about identity and memory, much talked about and talked up on the festival circuit. Itâs the work of debut feature film-maker Christos Nikou, who cut his teeth as second assistant director on Yorgos Lanthimosâs pioneeringly weird Dogtooth in 2009 â that seductive film whose bizarre stylings ushered in an entire Greek new wave of cine-absurdism. This is a movie in that recognisable style, and I incidentally think the Greek auteurs really have brought absurdism back in ways not seen the first wave of Beckett, Ionescu and NF Simpson in the theatre.
As a pandemic of amnesia hits Greece, forcing forgotten souls to reconstruct their identities, we wonder whether one man just wants the chance to start again.
Strictly Ballroom’s triumphant finale to Mads Mikkelsen’s glorious turn in
Another Round, dance has long been utilised by directors to execute their more cathartic scenes. In Christos Nikou’s
Apples, the moment arrives one hour in. As
Let’s Twist Again starts playing in an Athens bar, Aris (Aris Servetalis) slinks onto the dancefloor, his body moving in time to the music as one hand remains clasped around his drink. The scene, which was shot in a single take, provides Aris temporary respite from the film’s curious condition, while the track speaks to the feature’s ambiguous age. “In the script it was
Amid a global pandemic that sparks sudden amnesia, Aris (Aris Servetalis) is enrolled in a recovery programme designed to give blank people new identities. Armed with a Polaroid camera, Aris is tasked with creating and documenting fresh memories, a project that becomes complicated when he meets fellow patient Anna (Sofia Georgovassili).
by Ian Freer |
11 hours ago
Apples starts as it means to go on. Close-ups of a banal house interior are cut to the beat of a dull, steady drumbeat. The noise, it turns out, is a man, Aris (Aris Servetalis), rhythmically banging his head on a door jamb, oblivious to any pain. It’s an oddball note that Christos Nikou’s film not only runs with but amplifies, delivering a deadpan but weirdly moving treatise on the relationship between memory, identity and grief. Nikou, an assistant director on Richard Linklater’s