Baftas 2024: ‘Poor Things’ proves to be the most visually stunning movie of the year
Yorgos Lanthimos’ career started in the realm of Greek independent cinema, making movies that were firmly in the territory of ‘bizarre’ and ‘experimental’. With films like Dogtooth, Lanthimos wasn’t afraid to tread transgressive waters, filtering themes of violence, abuse and incest through a darkly comic lens.
However, his first English-language production, The Lobster, exposed his surreal cinematic style to larger audiences, helping to establish him as one of Hollywood’s most popular atypical storytellers. Bringing a level of accessibility to experimentalism, Lanthimos has continued to gain recognition with movies like The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Favourite, and, most recently, Poor Things.
The latter has become his most acclaimed work so far, marking another collaboration with The Favourite star Emma Stone. Playing Bella Baxter, a woman revived from her suicide through the transplantation of her unborn baby’s brain, Stone brings vivacity and depth to a challenging role. Unsurprisingly, she picked up a ‘Best Actress in a Leading Role’ award at the Baftas, one of five awards the film won at the ceremony.
The other four awards were related to the film’s visuals – ‘Best Special Visual Effects’, ‘Best Costume Design’, ‘Best Makeup and Hair’ and ‘Best Production Design’. This has helped cement Poor Things as the most visually stunning film of 2023, an impressive feat considering the release of movies like Barbie, Oppenheimer and The Zone of Interest in the same year, all of which were a sight to behold.
The success of Poor Things’ surreal and unconventional visuals, paired with its critical and commercial triumph, suggests that audiences do want to watch innovative, aesthetically subversive films. In an era where most of the biggest Hollywood blockbusters feature bland lighting choices and rather generic visuals – hoping to appeal to as large of an audience as possible – it is refreshing to see films like Poor Things succeed.
Shot entirely on film, something becoming increasingly less common these days, Poor Things is flawless from start to finish, with practically every frame ready to be screenshotted. However, it is clear that the movie isn’t merely prioritising style over substance. It uses great nuance to explore themes of identity, sexuality, womanhood, and societal expectations of femininity (despite being set in the Victorian era, these ring eerily true today), engaging viewers on a narrative level as much as an aesthetic one.
The visual world of Poor Things is vital to the narrative’s exploration of discovery, with Bella experiencing a new world through a child’s eye. Everything is bright, overexaggerated, extravagant, and sometimes domineering in its sheer scope, reflecting the way the innocent Bella is viewing the world for the first time.
The transfixing nature of the film is simply heightened by these bold sets and costumes, which allow us to feel totally immersed in the story. It feels as though Lanthimos was finally able to secure a budget that allowed him to go full ‘Lanthimos’, using unconventional visuals (particularly for Hollywood) to advance his style to its full capabilities.
One of the film’s most incredible uses of impressive visuals comes when Bella is on a boat journey. The vehicle is strangely shaped, emitting bright green fumes into a sky that resembles a watercolour painting. As Bella sits on the deck, you can’t help but want to crawl into the screen and experience this journey with her.
