Animal

Saw this movie when it was viewed in Göteborg Film Festival 2024.

I really liked this moving movie. It's realistic and cold, but still warm in its telling of the story. For me it's those conflicting feelings this movie transmits. It shows tragedies behind the happy faces of people seasonal working in the tourism industries, but it also shows people taking care of each other's back and how important the love between them are. It's a story about loneliness, hopes and dreams that has had to be tucked away through out the years and what that does to you. The main character has a lot to deal with and still the show must go on, mustn't it?

A dark depiction of life as a seasonal worker at an All Inclusive hotel. We get an insight into what the concept and the parallel reality going on there does to those who work and those who are guests in this type of place. How a dynamic is created and everyday principles and values are put out of play. We meet people who fled from their past in search of a better life with opportunities, only to end up in an existence that is empty of real hapiness and joy. Without goals or dreams. As a viewer, I am left with a heavy heart and a feeling that the illusion of freedom many times holds us captive.

Greece has an endemic tradition of radical, extreme cinema, which expressly seeks to shock the viewer, thereby conveying a critical, pathological feeling, truly distrustful of human nature and social organization. The main exception would have been Theo Angelopoulos, with his long takes and beautifully and profoundly filmed social and political themes.

But this Animal, by young director Sofia Exarchou, the second feature of her career after Park in 2016, fits perfectly into this allegorical trend of physical and psychological violence.

The film shows the dark side of mass tourism on a Greek island through a group of entertainers from a large hotel, who live in a semi-collective communion, behind the scenes of the building, in an empty, depressing routine, without meaning or escape. A far from golden cage that consumes their lives, in a supposed paradise for foreign tourists, leading them to a progressive nihilistic alienation. A film for those who enjoy pessimistic views of life.