Alps (Αλπεις)

A dark comedy about a group people in Athens called Alps, led by a man nicknamed Mont Blanc. They perform a service of filling in for dead people so that their relatives and loved ones can feel that the dearly departed are still with them. Two of the group are a nurse and a paramedic who are in a prime position to find those who may be in need of the Alps services. The nurse, for instance, cares for a girl who dies as a result of being in a traffic accident. She fills in for the girl at her parents’ home. The director Yorgos Lanthimos asks which is stranger her offer or the parents’ acceptance.

There are times in the film where it feels like a Greek adaptation of songs by Belle and Sebastian. This is due to the prevalence of athletes; tennis players and gymnasts, and the subsequent currency of sexual favours that appear in different guises and for differing reasons throughout the film.

The theme of character is very important in a film of such subject matter of course. It’s very interesting how the limits of this are explored as well. In all this the element of pretence, it’s quite often seen that betrayal is not far away. The statement that cannot hold true and that cannot explain any of the actions is ‘I was only pretending’. Even in pretence betrayal appears to be all too real.