What does it mean to be connected? Or arranged? Or programmed? Or all of the above?

Rating: 10/10 (31 May 2016)

Among the major artistic triumphs of cinema as a medium of the 21st century - and yes that is a hefty bunch of coconuts when it comes to praise - The Lobster is on the surface a dead-pan, ice-cold, horrific-as-the-Shining satire on marriage (notice the strings and shots of long hotel corridors), but is about so much more. It's a film that is devastating to watch in many moments, and it all comes down to how people are programmed; like the best dystopian fiction there is - Clockwork Orange, Kafka, 1984, Philip K Dick - it examines what it means when the heart and mind are ripped open and messed with to where they can conform to standards and rules. How can the heart have rules if it wants what it wants, so to speak? In Yorgos Lathimos' brutal, hysterical and harrowingly funny and sad look at what it means to fall in love, the rules are made to be broken and yet the hard-wiring is also essential.
The film's themes are rich for examination, such as how it looks at marriage, this idea that we have someone we "must" be with (arranged of course, in a great manner of speaking as, if you don't in this world, you're turned into an animal, albeit of your choice with makes it rather existential in that very real sense), and also on the flip-side what it means to have solitude and be content with that (or not, as case may be). But a great film, a new favorite film, won't be one only on its themes, if it feels like homework to watch it. While The Lobster is not something that is made by a filmmaker who is out to conform to what everyone's idea of a typically shot narrative is (in this way he wants to stick to a rigorous form, maybe like Wes Anderson but also I got some RW Fassbinder in there as well, and Bresson in some of the acting but not all), it's a lot of fun to watch... well, in a manner of speaking.
This is horrific stuff: Colin Farrell's character has to find a wife in 45 days and is sent to a hotel where all men and women are put into, for lack of a better term, uniforms (all the same suits and pants and dresses) and must find a mate. Also compatibility is all in this instance; while initially they may have found their first spouses on their own (this is a world so rich by the way in its construction you can feel the confines of it outside the hotel or, later on, in the woods), they're trained from birth that they MUST be with someone or ELSE. So when they are in this hotel they have to try and find, um, 'matching characteristics' such as a lisp (John C. Reilly, perfect from start to finish) or a limp (Ben Wishaw's John) or, for Farrell, near-sightedness. But this compatibility turns into a nightmare when a particular someone is matched up - they're moved from single to double beds - and the nightmare seems to be over once, as in many a dystopian story (i.e. Fahrenheit 451) when the hero escapes to join the so-called underground rebellion. Nope, not quite.
What's so remarkable to me about this film is how it manages to show in its style and approach forms of distance and alienation (again Fassbinder comes to mind), but I was so emotionally engrossed in what was going on. The actors I think do so much to contribute with that, as people like Farrell, Rachel Weisz, even in her own subdued way Lea Seydoux (who becomes sort of the real, unexpected but most terrifying villain of the story in the conflict sense, at least to me), bring so much emotional weight to a movie that is all about what we hide and what we show. What you show can get you punished, or transformed (notice the odd but awesome placement of a flamingo in the woods at one point among some other animals), or killed or even worse turned into something that will change you while keeping you human, so the 'characteristics' aspect of a relationship - do you like this, do you know this - is all part of the point.
It's a daring and provocative film that feels like a breath of fresh air, even as it's at many points unpleasant to watch. It's a strange thing to recommend a film like The Lobster so readily, in large part because it's a) like nothing else out there (a credit to my new favorite film studio, A24, also responsible for the horrific delights of The Witch and Green Room this year), and b) it's highly watchable. Again, this is, with all its slow-motion sequences (done at times to classical music) a chore to sit through. In a way its watchability is what may contribute to you squirming. I say good - sometimes you should squirm, whether it's a comedy or a horror or a cynical take on love or a tragedy. This is all of the above. Lanthimos may have his influences - some I may guess in my critical response, some I may have not gotten right - but he is all his own director, fully formed like some figure from Greece who's risen to the top of the ladder of artistry. I can't wait to see everything he does (aside from Dogtooth, which is amazing as well).