Filmmakers delve into Greek psyche in an absurd way

Joke: after sex, a Greek man asks: “How was it for you?” Greek woman: “Like an Angelopoulos movie”. “Eh?” “It went on for three-and-a-half hours, nothing much happened and I didn’t understand what it was all about.”

The films of Theo Angelopoulos are noted for their serious, unrelenting exploration of the Greek psyche and its relationship to history. Even the sex is unsexy. But Angelopoulos was, until his early death in 2012, not only Greece's predominant film-maker but one of the world's top directors, with no less than seven jury and Palme d'Or prizes at Cannes alone, including for probably his best-known film outside Greece, Eternity and a Day.

Most foreign audiences are more familiar with run-of-the-mill Greece-based films such as Shirley Valentine, Never on Sunday or Zorba the Greek. My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Driving Aphrodite are witty exposés of Greek weaknesses but also insights into more serious aspects of the Greek character.

Mind you, I've nothing against Shirley Valentine. It's easy viewing and good clean fun. The Lobster, a film starring Colin Farrell, is not. If Shirley Valentine could be called a "sit-com", The Lobster is a "sit-trag".

The conventional view of Greek films has now all changed, with two Greek films winning major international awards. In May, The Lobster won the Jury Prize at Cannes, and in October Chevalier won the top prize at the London Film Festival. The awards mark the arrival on the world scene of Yorgos Lanthimos and Athina Rachel Tsangari.

Lanthimos, the director of The Lobster, is a leading iconoclast in the Greek film industry, most noted for Dogtooth. The recent film – his first in English – stars Farrell and Rachel Weisz in stunning virtuoso performances with superb cinematography. It was nominated for seven prizes at the British Independent Film Awards, including best film, director, actor and screenplay.

Dystopia

It’s set in a dystopia (good Greek word) where it’s illegal to be single: if you are not a couple, you are selfish and anti-social; you are turned into an animal, and hunted.

Chevalier is directed by Tsangari, whose most notable film to date was Attenberg. Chevalier sets six men on a becalmed yacht, competing for the "best in everything" title – a sort of laddish decathlon. Tsangari's view of the male ego is not flattering; it makes "machismo" seem quite innocuous, showing the pointlessness and stupidity of the male competitive spirit.

Together, Dogtooth and Attenberg made Greek audiences sit up and take notice. These are fearless, provocative, psychological thrillers, permeated by the blackest humour.

Both directors can be seen in the Angelopoulos mould: he himself said they "have created a new language and have something to say". Lanthimos has given plentiful evidence of that in his previous films, particularly Dogtooth. Greek audiences, familiar with bizarre visions of life like Dogtooth, have recognised that these films represent something of themselves. If you think your family is dysfunctional, wait till you see Dogtooth. But then, doesn't it just exaggerate to an absurd extent the problems in every household and every conscience?

So they aren't your usual barrel of laughs. But Irish audiences and critics have welcomed The Lobster. Donald Clarke called it "a brilliant deadpan comedy, spookily beautiful. Nothing quite like it has come our way this decade."

When I saw it in Dublin, some audience members were aghast at the more violent, apparently gratuitous episodes, but towards the end one sensed a growing awareness of “what it was all about” – what star Farrell called “a treatise on the very nature of loneliness and how people’s loneliness can be abused”.

If you live in Greece, the “absurd” and “bizarre” aspects of the film seem quite normal. And so do the discontinuities, which have parallels in the way Greek life sometimes seems unconnected to reality, never quite saying what it means.

There was a similar audience reaction here. One critic said: “The scenes are quite absurd and there is not an obvious connection between the scenes and the messages they convey. Yet, once you do understand it, you realise how true it is to the society we are living in. Many people wouldn’t understand the movie, because they are marionettes of that society.”

‘How was it for you?’

These films put Lanthimos and Tsangari in the same league as veteran Irish directors such as Neil Jordan, Jim Sheridan and Lenny Abrahamson.No one would pretend Jordan’s film

Butcher Boy

or Abrahamson’s

Adam & Paul

were light comedies. For audiences worldwide, the answer to “How was it for you?” should be “five stars and a gold medal.”

Richard Pine's Greece Through Irish Eyes is published by Liffey Press.