Excellent choice: Lanthimos feasts on “The Lobster”

Cinema | June 15th, 2016

Pitch-black absurdist Yorgos Lanthimos uncorks another of his signature brain-scramblers in “The Lobster,” an allegorical examination and satire of human behavior, framed by the filmmaker’s speculative imagination.

As divisive as any of his previous films, “The Lobster” marks the Greek auteur’s first principally English-language feature, as well as his first to employ several actors well-known to Hollywood, including Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, and John C. Reilly.

“The Lobster” is marked by the catnip of its logline: the lonely and unattached must find a suitable love match at a well-regulated hotel/resort within 45 days or face the consequence of being irreversibly transformed into an animal.

The film’s title refers to the chosen creature of new arrival David (Farrell), who registers with his now-canine brother in tow. Acclimating to the byzantine regimen of decorum (anyone caught masturbating, for example, awaits a steep penalty), David befriends Lisping Man (Reilly) and Limping Man (Ben Whishaw), who help him get his bearings.

Prior to meeting Short Sighted Woman (Weisz, whose voiceover fills in a few blanks), the desperate and forlorn David experiences harrowing near misses with Biscuit Woman (Ashley Jensen) and Heartless Woman (Lanthimos regular Angeliki Papoulia), the latter a cold-blooded hunter skillful enough to extend her hotel stay and countdown clock by tranquilizing loners who have lit out for the woods.

While the story wobbles somewhat once Lanthimos ditches the fascinating rules and inhabitants of the hotel for the equally inscrutable etiquette of Lea Seydoux’s rebel leader and her band of forest-dwelling fugitives, the latter sections of the film explore the paradox of two avowed loners falling in love outside the sanction and governance of societal requirements – ironically placing themselves at great physical risk. Winston Smith and Julia are clear inspirations for the characters played by Farrell and Weisz, who share with Orwell’s famous pair “rebellion from the waist downwards.”

Parallels to “Nineteen Eighty-Four” extend beyond allusions to the Junior Anti-Sex League, even though several of the best scenes in “The Lobster” revolve around expressions of sexuality and romance, including some hilariously agonizing stimulation by hotel staff to encourage guests and the simultaneously funny and heartbreaking sight of David and Short Sighted Woman breaching the borders of their ruse during a passionate make-out session.

Alternately, some audience members will be put off by Lanthimos’ previously established flair for the comically gruesome, as shocking flashes of the typically cinematic taboo – including self-harm and cruelty to animals – sneak up with little warning.

Several critics have identified the movie’s awkward courtship rhythms as symbolic stand-ins for internet-age dating expectations, but as with the director’s previous films, one’s enjoyment can hold without the application of logic or explanation.

Like Lanthimos’ spiritual cinematic inspirations Luis Bunuel and David Lynch, the subjectivity of reality provides the viewer with a special compass, even if the needle spins away from true north. In a time of franchises and sequels, Lanthimos offers a film of ideas, even if he is unable to successfully harness all of them.

The singular filmmaker argues that love is not only resistant to the mathematical formulae of computer-assisted matching algorithms. It is hard of hearing, incapable of speech, and in the case of “The Lobster,” most certainly blind.

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