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100Alps has proven Lanthimos to be one of the most fascinating filmmakers anywhere right now.
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Jul 13, 201288The movie focuses tightly and obviously on role playing, but the most unsettling observations concern how fragile it all is - our health, our minds, our denial of death.
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Jul 10, 201288Both a companion piece to and in many ways a reversal of "Dogtooth," it builds on that film's surreally terse style and notions of communication and identity without diluting its singularity or concentration.
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80The climax errs on the side of the overwrought and overdetermined, like an earnest adolescent's first attempt at a short story. And yet Papoulia's extraordinary performance lingers, as does the film's provocative existential fog.
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80Puzzling and provocative, Alps has a lingering power and an effect that is thrillingly difficult to define.
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80Follow the film-maker. Let him lead you by the nose. Lanthimos knows exactly where he's going.
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75With "Dogtooth," the point was: Don't try this at home. Now, the expanded lesson is: Don't try this anywhere.
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75Alps, in spite of its title, is a very flat film, from the shallow focus photography, to the actors' monotone delivery.
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Sep 20, 201270The film takes some deciphering, but once a viewer cracks its code Alps opens up into something expansive and rich. Part of what makes Lanthimos so uniquely masterful is that he remains in control while refusing to point toward any singular interpretation.
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70Like "Dogtooth," Alps works by systematically unsettling our sense of what is normal and habitual in human interactions.
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Jul 11, 201267Lanthimos' skill at orchestrating these tense, creepy, shockingly funny setpieces is just as evident here as it was in "Dogtooth," but too much of Alps is left vague.
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63A film peculiar beyond all understanding, based on a premise that begs belief. It takes itself with agonizing seriousness, and although it has the form of a parable, I am at a loss to guess its meaning. Yet I was drawn hypnotically into the weirdness.
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60The premise is fetching and feels like a mystery, particularly as the film orchestrates its story to make the work of the Alps group seem like a kind of heist.
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Aug 23, 201250A strange story. A strange world. And strange characters doing even stranger things.
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50It's quibbling to draw up columns denoting what Lanthimos, a difficult but undeniable talent, does right and does wrong. He's seemingly working intuitively here, and whatever missteps he makes while feeling his way forward, he manages to pass quite near to one of the essential conundrums of being human.
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Jul 10, 201250The cumulative force of the screenplay and Yorgos Mavropsaridis' editing is not as hypnotic as in "Dogtooth," perhaps in part because those familiar with Lanthimos' m.o. will know what to expect.