Wednesday 28 October 2015

REVIEW - THE LOBSTER (YORGOS LANTHIMOS)


A window unto the weird, through which we see no wonderful world of fantasy, but a reflection of reality. Naturally, The Lobster is designed as such - to comment upon the absurdities of human interaction, or upon our engagement (or disengagement) with this notion - but its picture of peculiarity remains adequately fresh as to catch us off guard. Perhaps it's narcissism - we don't care how we see ourselves, just as long as we see ourselves. The Lobster is fresh because it is funny, possessed of a disarming wit that it sources, wisely, from its abundant absurdity. It's a surprising sense of humour, in that it shifts to best fit the material, though consistent in tone and delivery. This humour begins to dry up as the film moves beyond its initial scenario, not because it becomes tired (since it doesn't) but because it becomes scarcer; the level of invention in the overall scenario also starts to thin out, as The Lobster reaches for greater dramatic profundity in their place. By its callously inconclusive final shot, it's debatable whether or not it has reached it. One feels that the film might have been more successful had its two halves been reversed, essentially, thus to close on a comedic culmination (ofc this would make precious little sense narrative-wise, and the film is quite neatly done on the whole, so this is purely hypothetical). After all, The Lobster is finer as a comedy than as a drama, though despite its slackening of pace and purpose, it's nonetheless easy to appreciate the detail in the film's design.

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