Kinetta

These days, this director is very famous. I was wondering about the director's first films. I found this movie and watched it. This is not a movie. It didn't make any sense, I waited until the end, maybe something different would happen. It has no value as a movie, nothing happens in the movie. I do not recommend. But strangely, I have never regretted watching this movie. I wonder why ?

"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.

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.

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!

at last, something new is going on Greek cinema. i was disappointed by reading the summary in Thessaloníki film festival. it is not a film that tells a history, thus it is not worth searching for academic forms just to try to fit in a category. i was excited that a Greek film can touch me without listening thousands words by the actors with the dictionary of hard meanings on my legs. the film is using, simply, the language of body, helping it with an excellent camera work and if you are not afraid of leaving yourself free, watching the minimum cinema "effects", you 'll get the sentiment. i saw three kind of people in the film, i saw different kind of people's loneliness and people's imposition of power. risky but very efficient the direction-editing throws to the recycle bin whatever isn't really essential. brilliant music replaces lost people's senses without been overused. imaging there was a lot of improvisation on shooting i am curious of how a choice was taken because the film is running consecutively and nothing seems kicked out. after all, it's a hope that some guys load some 16mm magazines don't wait the big production budgets and do some new cinema.