Kinetta

One rarely gets a chance to see a Greek film in Greece, never mind the United States! So, when I found out that the Harvard Film Archive was showing "Kinetta" as part of a new European film series, I ran to see it. The fact that it was in the International Competition section of the 2005 Thessaloniki Film Festival gave me some assurance that it would it be a good film.

Was I wrong! The film opened with a silent montage of scenes that was bewildering. The few of us that were in the audience wondered whether there was a problem with the sound system. There was no problem with the sound system, but it was emblematic of what was wrong with the film. From the soundtrack to the jerky hand-held camera work, there seemed to be no justification for Giorgos Lanthimo's choices. It all seemed to be part of an intellectual exercise that repelled the viewer, rather than draw him in to the drama that was unfolding in front of him. Well, if repelling the viewer was Lanthimo's purpose, he was certainly successful! After 10 minutes, I wanted to walk out, but my masochism kept me in my seat for another 30 minutes. Finally, I gave up on the film and left. Another 50 minutes of watching it would have been unbearable. I was sorry not to have been the first to walk out; several others of the dozen or so in the audience preceded me.

While I was trying to give the film a chance to draw me in, I was thinking that in some way it was quite accurate in its depiction of how drab and meaningless life in Greece can be these days. But, it made that point within the first 20 minutes or so. The rest of the film lacked any artistic merit.

Michelangelo Antonioni said in an interview some years ago, that a filmmaker should not be concerned for the entertainment value of his films or be concerned of what the audience will think. I agree with Antonioni, but Lanthimos is definitely not an Antonioni!

I met Lanthimos in 2016 with Dogtooth, but what really made me love his filmmaking was The Killing of a Sacred Deer. I loved the ambiguity, the unsettling feeling, and, of course, the deadpan delivery of the characters. In Kinetta I found very little of that Lanthimos. The movie has little dialogue, and I see it more as an experience than a story. We don't get to know too much about the characters. Hell, we don't even know their names. The plot is nowhere to be found. A lot of times it seems that nothing is happening at all: people walking, cleaning the hotel rooms, eating ice cream, and so on. The pacing is extremely slow, and many scenes drag on for too long. The camera is handheld, sometimes too shaky, and far away from the pristine visuals in Lanthimos latest films. However, I do believe that there's something here. The constant discovery of who the filmmaker is that many years later will develop all of those idyosincrasies and end up making some of the best movies ever.

"Kinetta" is a Drama movie in which we watch a group of strangers, at a Greek hotel in the off-season trying to recreate some homicides and, film and photograph them.

I have to admit that I wasn't sure what to expect from this movie but after watching I need to say that I wasn't ready for this. The plot was weird, it didn't make any sense and the evolution of the movie was slow and boring. The direction which was made by Yorgos Lanthimos was something very different from his new movies. Regarding the interpretations of the cast I don't have much to say since there isn't anything worth saying. Finally, I have to say that "Kinetta" is a weird movie or maybe I didn't understand it.

Ending the year on this is a silent high note. I was pleasantly entertained by Lanthimos' first outing as a solo director.

Lanthimos' has changed so greatly through his career, yet here in this 94 minute feature, his DNA, his mark, his stamp is prevent all throughout. I must profess that I watched this film with only Italian subtitles (On Youtube), while I can somewhat read that language, I luckily didn't find any problems as this film is surprisingly sparse in the dialogue department. There is perhaps less than ten minutes of dialogue, all in Greek of course, and I got the gist of it from my dodgy Italian reading. Yet, this film is intensely visual, Lanthimos' trademark (By this point), is a language of its own.

The film is set in a small Hellenic resort, with three nameless characters. The chambermaid, he BMW lover and the photography man. A great deal of these performances is non-verbal, and based solely on bodily expression with a few from the face. Much of the framing os focused on bodies, the lens is in a funny aspect ratio and it (I believe) is in 35mm film. This sounds awfully like perhaps the foundations of the "Greek Weird/New Wave" of film style.

The performances were all of a good quality, particularly so as there was so little dialogue, this was well performed in that regard. In particular I found for Evangelia Randou to stand out as perhaps the best.

The Cinematography is primarily handheld, and the beginning's of Lanthimos' distinctive style just begin to creep out in some spots during this film, particularly during the first act and towards the very end of the film. But i must criticise that a lot of hand held work was extremely shaky, in some places it was almost too shaky, and how this then contrasts to the very level and more classical Lanthimos' style is rather jarring in places, and a fault in the editing, quite a deep one at that measure.

At times this film went twenty minutes without uttering a word, while this made for a quiet and strangely engaging experience. At times it felt a little sparse, as some of the contemporary reviews of the time called it 'nihilistic' - that it stands and believes in nothing. And I must disagree, seeing this film from the arse end of 2018 perspective, I believe that it actually a message about the monotony of life. How the world just turns and turns, eventually leading the main character to do what she finally tries at the end. After everything that happens, that is the snap. This films message, I think to be, is about life, it is about how we spend our time. And I think the critics from when this film was released got it wrong, this film is not nihilistic.

The direction of this film, like in the Cinematography is small inklings of Lanthimos' later work. This feels like Proto-Lanthimos, it was highly intriguing to see, the things which stuck, the things that changed, and the aspects of his style that are still the same to this day. The change from this to his mastery in 'Dogtooth' just four years later, shows his incredible growth and maturity and a director, a change so dramatic that it is rarely seen from many directors.

Overall this was a little fun experience, but this films jarringness, and lack of dialogue made it for a tonally quite inconsistent film. While some aspects are forgettable, others are so distinctly Lanthimos that it is quite fun to behold. But this still feels like a style in growth, thus the final product is stunted, and somewhat weak. This film is worth seeing of you are a fan of Yorgos Lanthimos, or are interested in the forming of the new Greek wave. I give it a 3/5.

The main fascination of "Kinetta" is imagining you have a time machine and you go back to 2005 and you show this film to someone and you tell him that, beginning right from his next film, director Yorgos Lanthimos will win Oscars and nominations and Cannes awards and become the most internationally recognizable Greek director since Theo Angelopoulos; they'd never believe you. The one similar case of meteoric rise to fame may be James Cameron with "Terminator"right after...."Piranha II: The Spawning". "Kinetta" is an extraordinarily dreadful movie: there is literally not a single scene in it that a) makes sense, b) has a point, or c) leads somewhere. The most mundane shots are held for an eternity (and a day). The only saving grace is that the female lead, Evangelia Randou, has a beautiful face, and hair, and total package really. Most meaningful dialogue exchange: "Do you want mayonnaise in your sandwich?" - "Just a little". 0.5 out of 4.