Seduction and intimacy seem to be desirable and repulsive at the same time in this key work of the Greek Weird Wave as the greyish, emotionless world of a young woman and her dying father is depicted with eccentricity.
Review #2,971
Dir. Athina Rachel Tsangari
2010 | Greece | Drama | 97min | 1.85:1 | Greek, French & English
Not rated – likely to be R21 for sexual scenes, explicit nudity and mature themes
Cast: Ariane Labed, Evangelia Randou, Vangelis Mourikis, Yorgos Lanthimos
Plot: Stuck in her boring factory town, twenty-three-year-old Marina is at the mercy of both her father’s impending death and her distaste for other humans.
Awards: Won Volpi Cup – Best Actress & Nom. for Golden Lion & Queer Lion (Venice)
International Sales: The Match Factory
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Mature – Sexuality; Death & Dying; Anti-Social
Narrative Style: Straightforward – Fragmented
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: General Arthouse
Viewed: MUBI
Spoilers: Mild
You know you are deep within the Greek Weird Wave when actor Yorgos Lanthimos (fresh from directing 2009’s Dogtooth) is seen stripping completely naked to make love with Attenberg’s lead actress, who plays a sexually inexperienced character repulsed by human intimacy.
That actress, Ariane Labed, would win the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival for this film and marry Lanthimos several years later.
Well, we have to thank Athina Rachel Tsangari, whose sophomore effort ten years after the similarly quaint The Slow Business of Going (2000), is considered a key work of the movement.
The title ‘Attenberg’ is a mispronunciation of the name [David] ‘Attenborough’ by Labed’s character, Marina, who enjoys watching nature documentaries. Marina’s father is dying and opting for euthanasia, while she and her good friend goof around on the streets of their nondescript factory town.
“You’re right, some things should stay taboo.”
In the jolting opening scene, her friend teaches her how to kiss with her tongue. It seems like seduction and intimacy are the only things to anticipate—or possibly desire—in their greyish, emotionless world.
Typical of the Greek Weird Wave, the performances are stilted and intentionally unnatural. At other times, Marina and her father mimic the feisty animals from the Attenborough show, imitating silly noises and actions.
A film about a novice in life preparing for a world without her father, Attenberg might not be entirely coherent with its form and somewhat Godard-esque scattershot editing, but there is enough perversity and eccentricity to make one go ‘WTF’.
Like Lanthimos’ own Alps (2011), I can’t say I enjoyed it, though they would make an interesting oddball-ish double-bill.
Grade: B-
Trailer:
Eternality Tan 