By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.6
Director: Giorgos Lanthimos
Starring: Aggeliki Papoulia | Ariane Labed | Aris Servetalis | Johnny Vekris
Original language title: Alpeis
Country: greece
Year: 2012
Running time: 93
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1859446
Thom says: “Lanthimos was the director of my TOP 2010 FILM DOGTOOTH so you can imagine how excited I was to see his latest contribution to world cinema. Thrillingly, I loved the film and even flirted with the idea of awarding it my FILM OF TIFF 2011. The Venice Film Festival had awarded it the best screenplay. Lanthimos stated in the Q&A that the film industry in Greece, as you’d imagine, is in a depressed state due to the rotten economic situation in the country. There are no film schools and it’s difficult to finance any home-grown work. So that Lanthimos is receiving universal recognition (DOGTOOTH was also nominated for an Oscar) speaks volumes about his talent. DOGTOOTH was nothing if not inexplicable and other-worldly and ALPS confirms his creepy take on humanity. In this new masterpiece an organization has been formed that displace people that have died to transition their families to accept the deaths. They interview the remaining family members to determine how the deceased dressed, acted, looked, and the like and then they decide who in the group will best imitate the departed. If you think this sounds strange just wait until you meet the members of this unique troupe. The head of the group is a total control freak, not unlike the menacing lead in DOGTOOTH, and he decides they should all go by aliases. Each member must name themselves after one on the mountains in the Alps range. The film follows one young woman who has just joined ALPS and is having trouble fitting in, especially because if mistakes are made the members get severely, even violently reprimanded. Because so many of Lanthimos’ characters are one-dimensional they easily slip into other people’s personas. The greatest attribute that this auteur has is the capacity to make a viewer question their perception, no small genius at all. Finally, his macabre sense-of-humor is unforgettable as well. 5 cats”
Michael says: “What can you say about ALPS, the new film by DOGTOOTH director Giorgos Lanthimos without saying too much? It’s a very unusual film (no surprise) with some powerful performances, unexpected warmth and violence, that keeps you thinking long after the final credit rolls. In many ways it’s far more complex than DOGTOOTH, but in a gentler, less confrontational manner. The film focuses on a group of four people, two men and two women, who work together with an unusual charge, or mission, or task. ALPS focuses on a young nurse, the slightly older of the two women in the group, and it is her emotional arc that we follow. But the younger woman, a rhythmic gymnast who has trouble grasping the nuances of the group’s mission, is also fascinating and emotionally gripping. The two men fare less well, with the group’s leader, who dubs himself Mont Blanc, a bit of a cypher, doling out cruel judgments seemingly at whim. The fourth member of the group has some fascinating moments, but upon examination, the group is a fairly misogynistic microcosm.
“It’s difficult to say too much about the plot without giving away potential spoilers, but ALPS is one layered drama, tackling themes of longing and redemption. Aggeliki Papoulia, who played the older daughter in DOGTOOTH, is wonderful as the nurse, seemingly the most competent of the four, but in truth, perhaps the most needy. Ariane Labed plays the insecure gymnast beautifully, so that in her last moment of the film, you can feel the transcendent joy, despite not really knowing exactly what is causing it. There are some really wonderful supporting roles as well, but the credits list in imdb is a little difficult to decipher. Lanthimos and his co-writer Efthymis Filippou (the two also worked together on DOGTOOTH) have created a fascinating story, and the direction is assured and inventive. ALPS is a thought-provoking and emotional journey. 4.5 cats”
Jason says: “It’s not crippling for a movie to have a peculiar, almost preposterous premise; the weird ones are often the best kind. It helps a lot if that premise is realized in an exciting manner, though, and ALPS sucks any possible thrill from the telling that it can.
“The story follows four people in Athens – a gymnast (Ariane Labed), her coach (Johnny Verkis), a nurse (Aggeliki Papoulia), and a paramedic (Aris Servetalis) – who form a group called ‘Alps’ (the paramedic calls himself ‘Mont Blanc’ as the leader) that offers a service in which they impersonate a dead loved one for a few hours every week. Of course, there are already existing tensions within the group, and sometimes it can be easy to lose oneself within this sort of role-playing.
“It might be easier for the audience to lose itself if director Girogos Lanthimos didn’t play everything so completely straight, though. The aliases acknowledge that this arrangement is peculiar, and there is naturally a point where things start to fall apart, but for most of the film, the characters go about their business as if this was perfectly ordinary, with the audience observing how they go about it but never seeing how it bumps up against more traditional means of mourning a loss. Sometimes, treating the outré as ordinary allows an audience to connect it to an absurdity in ordinary life, but the closest this movie comes is letting the audience compare the Alps’ drilling with how the coach torments the gymnast, but that sort of student-coach relationship is hardly the sort of thing that requires an unusual metaphor. Instead, not letting the strange thing be strange just means there’s little to do but watch the details.
“And the details of ALPS are just boring. The sheer repetition of it makes the point that this sort of stasis and clinging to the past is not healthy, but a person can only watch people repeat the various types of lighting product available in a hardware store so many times before he or she starts begging for them to open up or break down just so that things can mix up a little. Rote memorization and regurgitation is just not exciting cinema, and that makes it harder to appreciate the moments when something interesting does happen and the audience gets a look inside these characters’ heads. It doesn’t particularly help that Lanthimos and co-writer Efthymis Filippou take an almost extreme less-is-more approach with dialogue at times, often communicating ideas less with words than glances and movements that were rather difficult to see (at least, on the dark streaming video I watched).
“It’s hard to fault the cast; they actually do a pretty good job of investing their characters with more personality that their
words. Labed & Verkis tread familiar territory but with good execution, and Servetalis & Papoulia track them nicely as a taskmaster and trainee whose relationship is less formal but perhaps all the more harsh for it. Most of the mourners fade into the background, but Efthimis Filippou is memorable as the lighting shop owner.
“For all that there is good acting, the occasional amusing moment, and an ending that may inspire a ‘hey, do you think…’ conversation afterward, ALPS is mostly a chore to watch. For this viewer, at least, it has a hard time passing the test of being better than staring at a blank wall for too long, and the good bits aren’t nearly good enough to make up for that. 1.5 cats
“Seen 12 March 2013 in Jay’s Living Room (Chlotrudis Catch-up, Amazon Streaming)”