Every shot and every angle has a message, in this film more than ever. We feel crazily detached from all the characters, not only by their distant, quite held-back acting (intentional), but the slight bird views or off-center compositions give us a rather surveillance and voyeuristic experience. We are with them and we are not.
Often we are left with situations and no explanation but a high pitched sound - this is simple but effective and disturbing... awaiting even more doom. The sound tells a story deeper than what we see. We are left until minute 46 with the mystery of all character's connections with each other. This is masterfully done to keep us engaged so long.
The story winds down in a whirlwind of sickness, death and an epidemy of heartbreakingly sick emotions... I cant believe I kept watching, because the sickness of it drove mencrazy - but this is what brilliant cinema is about: telling a powerful story with powerful tools. The atmosphere, the imagery, the characters and the pace was, for me, on point.
There is what I found in Dogtooth and The favorite: the depth of human emotions wrapped in closeups, classical music, a touch of beautiful surrealism and eerie magic, sickeningly honest and raw characters and understanding that we are all made of sick things that happened to us and made us the sometimes awful people we are today: violent, selfish, messy, disturbing.
Lathimos brings the darker side of what it means to be human to cinema and I am forever grateful that I sat through these two painful hours. Would do it again.
Often we are left with situations and no explanation but a high pitched sound - this is simple but effective and disturbing... awaiting even more doom. The sound tells a story deeper than what we see. We are left until minute 46 with the mystery of all character's connections with each other. This is masterfully done to keep us engaged so long.
The story winds down in a whirlwind of sickness, death and an epidemy of heartbreakingly sick emotions... I cant believe I kept watching, because the sickness of it drove mencrazy - but this is what brilliant cinema is about: telling a powerful story with powerful tools. The atmosphere, the imagery, the characters and the pace was, for me, on point.
There is what I found in Dogtooth and The favorite: the depth of human emotions wrapped in closeups, classical music, a touch of beautiful surrealism and eerie magic, sickeningly honest and raw characters and understanding that we are all made of sick things that happened to us and made us the sometimes awful people we are today: violent, selfish, messy, disturbing.
Lathimos brings the darker side of what it means to be human to cinema and I am forever grateful that I sat through these two painful hours. Would do it again.