Attenberg (2010), an "anthropological" drama, directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari and filmed in the seaside town of Aspra Spitia, in the Greek region of Boeotia, follows 23-year-old Marina (Ariane Labed), an unpredictable creature whose isolated habitat and limited human interaction have led her to mimic the repetitive behavior of animals featured in the Sir David Attenborough documentaries. Viewers may immediately associate Asperger's Syndrome (the singer Susan Boyle and the Newtown killer Adam Lanza) with her emotionally bereft and aloof behavior. Her world is shaped by her father Spyros (Vangelis Mourikis), whose health is decaying and her promiscuous friend Bella (Evangelia Randou). Ultimately, she has an unemotional sexual tryst (Giorgos Lanthimos, who btw, is the director of Dogtooth and Alps), yet there is tenderness in the series of encounters, despite their perfunctory animalistic/clinical flavor, with the nakedness mimicking the apes in the jungle.
In one memorable scene (see poster), attempting to open up to Bella, Marina removes her shirt, exposing her shoulder blades, which she begins to pop in and out of joint. It’s a freakish confessional, and it encapsulates the core of the film: it’s one thing to hear someone describe herself as double-jointed, another to see it in practice.
Just as in the Attenborough TV documentary with the gorillas, the relations in her life are unemotional. Inevitably, her father dies, and the cremation process is equally devoid of emotion. The functional process of packing him off to Germany to be cremated (cremation is legal in Greece and has been since 2006, but is still frowned upon by the Orthodox Christian church there) pulls her back into a world that is hard and cold and stark. She stands and watches his coffin packaged, x-rayed for the flight, marked with "THIS WAY UP" stickers like some Amazon or eBay parcel.
In an interview at the 2011 Sydney Film Festival, Tsangari states "I'm a big fan of combining things that are not readily combinable." After all, that is the basis of this blog.
In one memorable scene (see poster), attempting to open up to Bella, Marina removes her shirt, exposing her shoulder blades, which she begins to pop in and out of joint. It’s a freakish confessional, and it encapsulates the core of the film: it’s one thing to hear someone describe herself as double-jointed, another to see it in practice.
Just as in the Attenborough TV documentary with the gorillas, the relations in her life are unemotional. Inevitably, her father dies, and the cremation process is equally devoid of emotion. The functional process of packing him off to Germany to be cremated (cremation is legal in Greece and has been since 2006, but is still frowned upon by the Orthodox Christian church there) pulls her back into a world that is hard and cold and stark. She stands and watches his coffin packaged, x-rayed for the flight, marked with "THIS WAY UP" stickers like some Amazon or eBay parcel.
In an interview at the 2011 Sydney Film Festival, Tsangari states "I'm a big fan of combining things that are not readily combinable." After all, that is the basis of this blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment