Fruto de la memoria

A dash of Philip K. Dick & Julio Cortazar (Disturbed Memory Department of the Neurological Hospital) and lots of Greek Weird Wave clichés - deadpan humor, doom and gloom, alienation, grief, identity-crisis, ennui etc. Alas, Apples lacks the haunting sadism of Lanthimos and Makridis' films which could make it more palatable to a wider audience. Nikou's suggestion - amnesia is not a disease, but a cure - is intriguing.

A film quite good in terms of plot, composition of the story and its evolution as well as with a great cinematic and directorial image, sound and shooting for the Greek data, the only thing that spoils it is the typical Greek "daydreaming" and the non-liveliness of the actors, except for the excellent Servetalis once again. The story had some holes in some parts of the film with a more characteristic ending as I think the director should have given more basis to the ending of the film and find out all the reason that ended up and the main character to choose this "new identity". ... maybe it was appropriate that I could not enter the director's mind except to make guesses and reflections ... generally a well-crafted plot which was not at all often boring and similar to others.

"You could make a new beginning now."

Apples is a Greek movie that I fortunately got a ticket to during AFI. This must be the year for perfectly timed movie releases. Like our world today, the movie takes place during a worldwide pandemic. In this case, the unknown illness causes sudden amnesia. Middle-aged Aris finds himself enrolled in a recovery program designed to help unclaimed patients build new identities. I probably should've paid attention more in the beginning (I was finishing up some school work) because I had no idea what was actually going on the first 20 minutes. Once I figured everything out, I could actually start enjoying this movie. What I've found is Greek films have a certain style. All the ones I have seen have a quirky style, are drama-comedies, and have a deeper meaning to them. Apples follows this same setup the whole way through. I liked this style for the movie, but I found a major issue with pacing. The beginning starts off very slow and leaves many questions for the viewer. Right away there isn't much of an interest other than the acting and direction. Aris Servetalis plays Aris (I don't think the naming is coincidental) well. We're with him the whole time. He starts out having contracted this amnesia illness so we're blind with him. The comedy comes mainly from him. It's not the sort of laugh out loud comedy but it's more wholesome and situational. But the main source of interest comes from director Christos Nikou. He could be a new Yorgos Lanthimos. Their styles from the pale cinematography to the deadpan acting are very similar in the way of execution. I liked where he was coming from and this is a personal story to him as said in a Q&A with him, but this isn't as fleshed out as I would like it to be. Maybe a rewatch would help gain a better experience, but for now there's a bit of a disconnect. I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a contender for international feature this awards season as it showcases good filmmaking.

I don't often like cinematic riddles, but this one deserves putting the effort to try and solve it. Especially since the movie itself gives us all the necessary clues for the solution.

The more I thought about this film the better I realized it was. It asks two basic questions what's our memories made of? And, how do we build new ones if we lost all those we had?

Yes, it's funny at moments, but I don't think it's a comedy and I said more than once on this pages "comedy drama" or "tragic comedy" are non terms as far as I'm concerned. Life have their funny moments, and showing these funny moments doesn't mean we're telling a funny story. In fact most of the laughs in this movie come from the artificial attempt to create new memories for these people who lost their old memories so they can build a new personality. It's like constructing a personality in a laboratory - that's not the way to do it. Personality is what carries us through real life and that's the only place where personalities can be built.

The film says this very loudly with a story that allows us very limited information about its protagonist. Aris, the protagonist seems to suffer from the amnesia sickness that the story tells us, is taking place all over the world. But we'll soon realize Aris does remember certain things, but doesn't like remembering. We'll have to reach the very end of the movie to solve its riddle and pay close attention to the clues provided through the story to find why Aris stopped fearing apples which are - as the film says - "good for the memory"

I won't be saying anything more, as this would mean adding a spoiler - I don't do these.

Christos Nikou's debut film is a fitting entry to the Greek Weird Wave, following its canons yet curiously introspective in a genuine way. The city is under attack by a curious pandemic of amnesia: tens of thousands suddenly forget everything about their past life. So seems to happen to the main character, found on a bus without documents and hence unidentifiable. Since nobody comes to look for him and identify him, he is enrolled in a program that aims at giving new identities to unidentified people. The film is obviously about how memories shape an identity, but this is tackled in a most unexpected way even knowing the premise of the film. It is suggested that the main character seems to remember things from his old life, but it may be because of the titular apples he keeps eating contonuously, which are told to have the power to bring back memories. In the tradition estabilished by Lanthymos (whom Nikou assisted in Dogtooth), the scenes are austere and dry, yet there is room for the interior journey of the main character, around which the film is constructed, allowing not so much an introspective look, but rather a very close view (additionally, the narrowness of the narrative is paralleled by the 4:3 aspect ratio). It's a debut film, and it is not flawless, one can argue that the analysis on the effects of memory loss and identity loss are not deep enough, but Nikou has been able to convey a double-effect of apparent introspectiveness, yet distanced look, which I found interesting enough to be interested in future projects by him.