The Lobster

Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015

IMDB

3/5

Anyone who has seen Yorgos Lanthimos’ 2009 film Dogtooth is aware of his bizarre vision. He has a certain level of commitment to his work, while creating unusual stories in alternate dimensions. He doesn’t give up on them. The Lobster is another odd high-concept piece of work that is set in an alternate reality. In this reality single adults are given a window of time while they must find a lover. If they fail to find a lover within that timeframe, they will be transformed into an animal of their choice. A completely original and provocative premise for a film. Plenty of cinephiles were anxiously waiting for a release date on The Lobster. It was pushed up a bit and finally made it to screens in 2015.

There are certainly similarities to the aforementioned Dogtooth. The sense of confinement, a sort of forced etiquette, and obvious awkward tension. Just like Dogtooth, Lanthimos slowly serves pieces and pieces of the story. He builds and builds and builds. The layers of the onion are unpeeled. All while residing in this strange sense of reality, one that is rigid but also completely intriguing. The intermittent narration almost gives makes the film feel like a Wes Anderson piece on acid.

He decides to put most of the focus on main character David, played by Colin Farrell. David is a recently divorced man who has just arrived at the hotel looking for a mate. He’s a shy guy, a visibly tense guy. Honestly not a very likeable character. That’s one of the more troublesome aspects of the movie. Farrell is a difficult guy to get behind. He’s not necessarily the everyman. The everyman is more like John C. Reilly’s Lisping Man character. Actually, it feels like Farrell walked off filming the disappointing Season 2 of True Detective and didn’t get changed or even shower and just went right to work on the set of The Lobster. So that character becomes a bit draining, having to follow David for so long. And that is okay for the first ⅔ of the film, where you are getting served the constant exposition of this outlandish world. And when you venture into the lush forest (filmed in the breathtaking Dromore Woods in Ireland), it continues to be alluring. But when minutes in the forest becomes a more lengthy stay, the film falls into a tiring pace. Lanthimos tries to wrap up the film with an open-ended final scene just like he did with Dogtooth. But it fails to have that lingering effect, failing to keep that inner dialogue going. The Lobster is a very inventive piece of work Lanthimos that should certainly be seen, but it’s likely not to take a spot in your brain like Dogtooth did.

The Man from Earth

Richard Schenkman, 2007


3/5

Professor John Oldman (David Lee Smith) suddenly decides, after 10 years of teaching, that he is going to move to an undisclosed destination. His colleagues are perplexed, and confused. During a going-away party at his cabin, he decides to tell them that he is actually a caveman from the Paleolithic age that never died. They assume he's lying, or trying to consult with them on material for a book he may be writing.

The film, set in the southwest, is fueled by good acting and sharp writing. Substance over style, it doesn't need much more than its provocative dialogue and desert country backdrop to move the story along. As they arrive at the his remote cabin, they immediately start asking questions. You get a sense that he was a very well-liked individual who made a lot of friends on campus. As they open a bottle of Johnny Walker Green, he begins to open up a bit about the reasons for his departure. His colleagues are other professors, well-versed in subjects from Psychology to Anthropology to History to Christian Studies. Instant skeptics, the layers of the onion are peeled and the colleagues begin to try to find cracks in his story. John, a reserved but kind man, continues to recount tales of hunting, looking at the stars thousands of years ago and questioning god, to the rise and fall of the Roman empire. The emotions of the colleagues become unsteady as the story continues. In their eyes, they are hurt that a good friend is leaving for an unknown reason and they are angry that he's playing with their emotions on his way out of town. At times, they assume he has manipulated them by putting them all in the same room hoping to pick their brains. As night falls, the stories continue. Angry and confused, they still cannot get up and walk out. They must hear more. YOU must hear more. You, the audience, basically serves as another body in the room sitting around the fireplace listening along. John's story is engaging and ultimately becomes entrancing as the sun sets and you sit around listening, and gazing at the hypnotic flames of the fire.

Jerome Bixby, who wrote the script, has a background in the sci-fi genre. With Star Trek and The Twilight Zone episodes on his resume, he's clearly someone with a sharp mind that has some interesting ideas. While the film is noticeably low budget, it doesn't call for much more. It's not necessary. This film would also presumably do well on the Broadway stage.

Upstream Color

Shane Carruth, 2013

5/5

Kris (Amy Seimetz) gets abducted and gets put into a state of hypnosis from a mysterious plant extract. When she finally comes out of it, she attempts to piece her life back together. She encounters Jeff (Shane Carruth), who has endured a similar experience, and together they both try to make sense of their changed world.

When I watched this film for the first time, I made the mistake of taking periodic breaks from it. BIG mistake. While you may get away with that with some other films, this is a film built for one sitting. There's just so much there. It's just not going to be beneficial taking yourself out of Carruth's vision and stepping back in when you please, hoping to immediately reorient yourself. Therefore, I gave the film the honor of re-watching a second time and boy was I happy I did.

The film possesses qualities similar to Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's a wonderfully shot film, which really gives the impression that Carruth has evolved with much of his film-making abilities since making the gritty low-budget sci-fi time travel thriller Primer. The visual elements of the film are excellent, at times very dream-like. Detailed interiors, blinding white light, molecular shots of the blue extract taking hold. Impressive editing. Carruth (deservedly) won the Special Jury Prize for Sound Design at Sundance. The soundtrack reinforces the hypnotic sensibility, with a resonating cadence similar to the soundtrack of The Assassination of Jesse James or the aforementioned Eternal Sunshine.

It's not just a film about an abduction, drugging and the recovery. It's about way more than just Kris' abduction. It's about way more than whatever trauma Jeff has also experienced. It examines a particular life force, and essence of being, a certain vein of existence. A frequency of sound, or many sounds. A connection with the animal world. A communication system one has with nature, similar to the plant system in Avatar but much more complex. I was guilty of thinking too abstractly the first time seeing the film, when the concepts of the film are actually much more literal. Shane Carruth is clearly a high-IQ filmmaker, capable of making intelligent films on par with Christopher Nolan, David Lynch or Darren Aronofsky. It will be interesting to see what kinds of films he continues to make, presumably with growing budgets.