dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
2009 // 1 hr 34 min // Digital Porjection
Starring: Christos Stergioglou, Angeliki Papoulia, Michele Valley
In an effort to protect their three children from the corrupting influence of the outside world, a Greek couple transforms their home into a gated compound of cultural deprivation and strict rules of behavior. Soon, the family’s engineered reality begins to crumble, with devastating consequences. Before THE FAVOURITE and POOR THINGS, Yorgos Lanthimos kick-started the Greek Weird Wave with this absurdist, rollercoaster of a film!
The Greek Weird Wave is a movement that arose in response to Greece’s government-debt crisis that began in 2009 and led to intense tax increases, impoverishment, high unemployment, and the worst recession Greece has ever had. The Wave draws upon the difficulty and peculiarity of this period by exploring the human experience in surrealist, and often upsetting, ways. Alienated protagonists, minimal dialogue delivered impassively, uncomfortable sexual encounters, and the irrational conveyed rationally occupy films of this movement. They’re bleak, subversive, and definitely WEIRD!