The films of Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth, etc) are strange, off-beat, enigmatic, unsettling, confronting, and often hard to fathom, and have divided audiences. The Lobster, his first English language feature film, is no exception. It won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival this year, but like a lot of previous such winners it is a film that lacks broad commercial appeal, but will find its niche on the festival circuit. Like Dogtooth, The Lobster is set in a strange, closed and oppressive community with its own rules and structures where deviation is severely punished.
This bleak, absurdist comedy is set in a dystopian society in the not too distant future where single people are arrested and transported to a creepy luxurious hotel. There they are given 45 days in which to find their soul mate, otherwise they are transformed into an animal of their choice. Each new arrival has one hand cuffed behind their back to reinforce the notion that one can’t really do much alone. They mix awkwardly at dinners and dances, and watch the staff perform small vignettes on the advantages of being a couple.
The guests also have the opportunity to extend their stay by hunting down “loners”, rebellious runaways who have fled the hotel for the nearby forest and freedom. But the people who live in the forest also have their own set of rules, and relationships are discouraged and any romantic attachment is severely punished. A third world is the nearby city – pristine, cold, sterile and seemingly impersonal.
This is a jarring and unusual film that offers up a scathing satire on contemporary society and its strictures and rules, and it also explores concepts of individuality and modern relationships. The bleak tone is leavened by touches of deadpan humour.
Lanthimos has attracted a strong cast that includes John C Reilly, Ben Whishaw, Rachel Weisz, and Lea Seydoux as some of the oddball characters. A slightly pudgy Colin Farrell brings a frilty and fragility to his role as David, the central protagonist, a divorced architect whose strange journey we follow. Weisz’s voice over narration is droll and literate, but comes across almost as if she is reading the words from the page of a novel.
BY GREG KING
