Capone's Art-House Round-Up with THE LOBSTER and MEN & CHICKEN!!!

Hey, folks. Capone in Chicago here, with a few films that are making their way into art houses or coming out in limited release around America this week (maybe even taking up one whole screen at a multiplex near you). Do your part to support these films, or at least the good ones…


THE LOBSTER
Like many of the films from Greek director Yorgos (ALPS, DOGTOOTH) Lanthimos, his latest work (and his first in English), THE LOBSTER makes more sense watching it than it does explaining it, but here goes. Set in a version of the ever-popular dystopian future in which being single is a detain-able crime after a certain age, THE LOBSTER is actually two films that look at the options made available to those without a partner. Once caught, a single person is taken to a hotel of sorts with other single people and told that they have 45 days to find a partner or else they will be transformed (via a decidedly unpleasant-sounding procedure) into the animal of their choice. If they do pair up successfully (and convincingly), they are cast back into the world. That’s the first film.

The second part of the movie examines what happens to uncoupled hotel guests who manage to escape and meet up with other singles hiding in the vast woods surrounding the hotel (where many of the recently transformed animals stroll around without a care) in a type of exile where pairing up is strictly prohibited and even punished by those in charge. No matter where you land, your romantic life is strictly managed, but no one really complains, especially not David (Colin Farrell), through whose eyes we see this story unfold and who doesn’t quite feel comfortable in either environment.

Co-written by Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou, THE LOBSTER walks us through the paces of the hotel with such a casual but regimented delivery that you could almost set a metronome to its cadence. All of the characters speak in a largely monotoned, carefully modulated, emotionless manner that some may find too affected, but by hearing these characters deliver what would normally be highly charged dialogue in such a passionless way, it forces us to hear them more clearly and spot moments when a hint of panic or longing or melancholy slips in. It’s a fascinating exercise in language and message delivery that adds to the overall atmosphere quite powerfully. For those wondering, David’s animal of choice is a lobster for reasons that primarily involve him liking the sea; in this film, sometimes things just are.

The only character actually given a name, David arrives at the hotel with a dog, who happens to be his brother, and he begins the process of seeking a mate. First, he observes some of the other guests’ successes and failures, including John C. Reilly as Lisping Man and Ben Whishaw as Limping Man. The caretaker/warden/hotel manager is the great Olivia Colman, who recites rule reminders and their requisite punishments with a dominatrix’s combination of standoffishness and lusty authority. Colman’s magnificent performance underscores the film’s clear assertion that single people make coupled people nervous for some reason, and those in pairs will only be calmed when everyone is linked.

Eventually David partners with Heartless Woman (the director’s regular Angeliki Papoulia), whom he manages to fool into thinking he’s equally heartless and therefore a perfect match. But when his ruse falls apart, all hell breaks loose, and David ends up running for the woods. Before long, he stumbles onto other escapees, led by Loner Leader (Léa Seydoux of BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR), who explains the group’s own set of punishable guidelines, most of which involve not falling in love, as if somehow that stipulation counters what the world of the hotel is forcing people to carry out. Naturally, David finds himself drawn to Short Sighted Woman (Rachel Weisz, who also narrates the film), and after they finally confess their feelings for each other, they come up with their own series of hand and body movements as a secret language of love.

If THE LOBSTER sounds absurd, congratulations, you figured that out. But it’s also darkly funny in its messages about societal pressures to marry and have children (the hotel doesn’t discriminate between gay or straight couples, so it’s nice that we’ve got that figured out in the future). Staying in line with the director’s previous films, the movie can also get quite cruel. When David repeatedly rejects one female guest who has her eye on him, she decides to kill herself by jumping to her death, sparing her the animal transformation, but she doesn’t die from her injuries and instead lies in a heap in a great deal of pain. There are a few moments like that that will likely leave a cavernous pit in your stomach, and I’m fairly certain Lanthimos would be just fine with that.

It seems inevitable that our lovers will get caught; the question is, What will their punishments be, since Seydoux’s character seems to personalize her brutality to fit the crime. But as THE LOBSTER moves cautiously and carefully toward its surprisingly moving conclusion, Lanthimos can’t help but add an element of repulsion to the final sequence. We want to lean into the screen to be part of its intimacy, but a specific tender gesture makes it almost impossible not to want to look away.

Most of the film exists on duel (almost opposing) planes, and as such, it almost demands multiple viewings. THE LOBSTER is an exercise in patience, weirdness, anarchy and ultimately compassion. It’s a film that insists that you don’t think too hard about what is unfolding, while at the same time asking you to contemplate some very weighty subjects. There’s something both fragile and hardened about the work, and it’s a trip into the bizarre that I wish more filmmakers were willing to take.


MEN & CHICKEN
About two years ago, almost to the day, I was lucky enough to interview the great Danish-born actor Mads Mikkelsen (currently set to co-star in the next Marvel movie, DOCTOR STRANGE, and the next STAR WARS film, ROGUE ONE) for a smaller film he was in, and we discussed his commitment to working in the Danish film industry, with Danish filmmakers, including the great writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen. Mikkelsen has collaborated with him on a couple of dark comedies, THE GREEN BUTCHERS and ADAM’S APPLES. He mentioned to me that he had just shot another movie with Jensen called MEN & CHICKEN, and that it might be their funniest and darker work yet. Oh, lord, he wasn’t kidding.

MEN & CHICKEN follows the exploits of a pair of slightly off brothers—the neurotic and highly intelligent Gabriel (David Dencik) and the aggressively unlikable, chronic self-pleasuring Elias (Mikkelsen). When their father dies, they discover clues that reveal they were actually adopted, and they immediately begin a quest to find their real parents in the most remote island off the coast of Denmark. The quirky townsfolk eventually steer the two men in the direction of their family estate, which is occupied by three half brothers, all of whom are slightly misshapen with personalities even a mother might be excused from loving. Gregor (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is kind and loyal to a fault; Josef (Nicolas Bro) is large but docile; and Franz (Søren Malling) is a violent man who beats people over the heads with stuffed animals. A great deal of the film is simply watching these borderline-feral men navigate around each other without tearing each other’s heads off, and eventually an uneasy peace is settled into.

Being the smartest and most curious, Gabriel wants to know the whereabouts of, as well as the research done by, his father. But when he starts noticing hybrid animals running around the property (which is actually an abandoned asylum) he assumes his father was doing genetic research. MEN & CHICKEN is a work for those who don’t trust mainstream science or conventional storytelling, but it’s also a story about a makeshift family, bound by unappealing looks and demeanors. With just the smallest amount of prosthetic makeup and an unflattering haircut, Mikkelsen is reduced to a grunting brute, and the transformation is remarkable.

Without ruining any of the film’s genuine surprises, the movie deals with some unsavory areas of science, both natural and unnatural, as well as the science of the mind. A pitch black comedy of manners and a freak show of the highest order, MEN & CHICKEN goes places usually reserved for science fiction, but there’s a gritty quality to the piece that adds just the correct measurements of fascination and perversion to make you laugh and cringe in the same moment. It’s safe to say, you’ve never encountered any film like this in quite some time, if ever.

-- Steve Prokopy
"Capone"
capone@aintitcool.com
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