Nothing but Lanthimos

How would you feel if, at a moment’s notice, your life is taken over by another, facing you with the fact that your existence is replaceable, becomes indistinguishable and cumulates to nothingness – nimic. Award-winning Greek director, screenwriter and producer Yorgos Lanthimos, who has previously caught our eye with his infamous festival darlings such as the vicious, perverse love story The Lobster (2015), the surreal psychological thriller The Killings of a Sacred Deer (2017) or the sarcastic, back-stabbing power play and period piece The Favourite (2018), enlightens us yet with another macabre tale – a short film, co-written with his writing partner Efthymis Filippou and starring the multi-talented Hollywood actor Matt Dillon, which is nothing short of his aesthetic and narrative trademarks, keeping us on the edge of our seats. Lanthimos walks the fine line between the tragic and the comedic, at once implying the absurd, surreal and brutal nature of reality. With a pinch of sarcasm, he paints a picture delineated by an anamorphic, distorted look and hard cuts that contrast with the ever-spanning presence of urban noise and orchestral music – asking the time and measuring it –, leading us to question individual existence and, at its boiling point, lifting us into a dystopian, infinite loop where time becomes immeasurable. Those who have not yet been dazzled by Lanthimos’ ingenious works will be in for a treat with this darkly twisted operetta.