The Greek director Lanthimos already made some absurdistic films, but this time he managed to produce an international film. We follow a man (Collin Farrell) whose wife leaves him. In the next scene he checks into a hotel of which it soon becomes clear that it is some sort of institution to teach “loners” to find a partner so they can return to society, known as “the city”.
The hotel has all kinds of weird rules and even weirder ways of teaching their inhabitents the ways of love. At some point David (Farrell) flees the hotel and ends up in a third world, that of the people who live in the forest and who (either or not by choice) have no life-partners.
This results in a very absurdistic film in which everything is different from what we are used to ourselves. Still many elements are recognisable.
Indeed, inspite of the international production, Lanthimos still forces his strange ideas of the world upon his audience.
You must have a strange kind of humour to enjoy this film. When you know, and like, Lanthimos’ earlier productions, you do not have to fear this being a bigger, and English, production. If Lanthimos is new to you, be prepared for something out-of-the-ordinary.
