– VENICE 2023: Greek director turned international Yorgos Lanthimos hits the bull’s-eye with an unprecedented historical film
This article is available in English.
The long-awaited return of the Greek Oscar winner Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor things (+read also:
trailer
movie postcard), is one of the most pleasant surprises of this year. The Golden Lion of Venice contender may not be easy to describe, but the hybrid label “gothic coming-of-age sex comedy” offers a nice approximation to the taste of this film. The seventh feature of Lanthimos is not only his attempt in the second period after Favorite (+read also:
review
trailer
movie postcard)but it is also the second work written Tony McNamaranot the director himself. In this case, the script is adapted by a Scottish writer. Alasdair Graythe 1992 novel of the same name, which Lanthimos brings to life with an all-star cast: Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo And Rami Yousef are in the lead.
In the novel, an eccentric doctor brings a young woman back to life after her apparent suicide by donating her the brain of her unborn child to her. Excited about his experiment, Dr. Godwin Baxter (Dafoe) assigns Max McCandles (Youssef) to help collect daily data and record her progress. Although there are obvious echoes of Mary Shelley. Frankenstein Here, Poor things is about making a woman or how a woman makes herself. Unlike the book, Lanthimos’ film follows the perspective of the woman in question, Bella, in both content and form. As her speech and movements become more fluid, the world we are witnessing expands, becoming brighter by the minute, from black and white beginnings to subsequent oversaturated colors. As soon as she decides to elope with famed flirty Duncan Wedderburn (Ruffalo), the mesmerizing cityscapes of Lisbon, Alexandria and Paris open up before us, the stylized look of which enhances Bella’s sense of wonder.
Tony McNamara shifts the original setting from politically significant Victorian Glasgow to whimsical London, and in doing so the political allegory dissipates to give way to a literal sense exemplified by Bella’s bodily way of being in the world. If Lanthimos was attracted to the idea of mind as blank board (the dream of the Enlightenment), his filmmaking conveys it through the body. Working closely with Stone, who also acts as a producer, ensured the gradual development of the character and led to amazing results. A versatile actress, Stone excels here with a performance that implements all stages of her character’s socialization process in her posture, walk and speech. Bella’s autonomy is directly related to her sexuality, and this discovery – in countless impressive sex scenes – is also reflected in her body and movements. Favorite operator Robbie Ryan lenses of these shifts via close-ups and fisheye, often combined by longtime editor Lanthimos Yorgos Mavropsaridisin order to create an acquaintance at a distance at the right time.
Poor things reveals Lanthimos’ taste for close-up shots and flamboyant aesthetics, revealing a new dimension to his creative approach to storytelling. By drastically improving Gray’s source material, choosing a more fitting ending, the Greek director has made what appears to be his most hopeful film yet. He couldn’t have chosen a more suitable film to get rid of his political allegories: the bodily problems underlying Poor things not only overcome, but overcome with gusto, empathy and plenty of biting humor. One can never truly prepare either for this spectacle or for the wealth of whimsical vitality it offers, despite the name’s promise.
Poor things is a product of Searchlight Pictures, produced in collaboration with British companies Element Pictures and Film4 in conjunction with American companies Fruit Tree and TSG Entertainment. Searchlight Pictures also handles worldwide sales.