The surprising movie Yorgos Lanthimos calls a “masterpiece”
Yorgos Lanthimos’ filmmaking is always intentional. His uncomfortably candid dialogue, his stark, surreal worldbuilding, and his twisted and tense plots all work together to inflict a certain discomfort on the viewer. Still, between the precision and purpose that drives his direction, there remains a subjectivity to his films.
The Lobster presented a strikingly stark look at the absurdity of modern dating and the pressures of love. It’s blunt and brazen in its commentary throughout, but in its final moments, we watch a masterful Colin Farrell stand in a bathroom with a knife, planning to blind himself for love. Rather than allowing us the satisfaction (and disgust) of seeing him commit the act, Lanthimos leaves us hanging, asking, will he or won’t he? How much is love worth? How far has his warped perception of the concept gone?
The ending of his follow-up offering, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, offered a far more concrete climax with a scene which showed a blindfolded Farrell shooting his son. Delivering its gory ending in full force, The Killing of a Sacred Deer leaves viewers to debate the varying thought processes and moralities presented throughout the movie.
Even within his relentlessly precise dialogue and filmmaking, Lanthimos acknowledges the intelligence of audiences and is sure to leave space and ambiguities for them to fill in. This is, perhaps, because the director prefers to watch movies with this quality, as he explained in The Rumpus. He noted, “I enjoy the experience of watching a film and not being told things. That’s what cinema is – it should be about showing an image and having the people watching it put everything into it.”
He explained: “You have an image of a chair – a still shot. Some see it as an ugly chair or a beautiful chair. Maybe someone has left, or someone is coming. I think that’s how cinema should work. But it’s not a lot to ask for your mind to work, at least with some films.”
Despite his own love of ambiguity, Lanthimos did divulge his love for one surprisingly unsubtle action flick. Acknowledging that more direct filmmaking can, sometimes, be a good time, he uses Paul Greengrass’s 2007 movie The Bourne Ultimatum as an example. Starring Matt Damon as the titular Jason Bourne, the film marked the third entry into the James Bourne series.
Though the film is a far cry from the precise, off-putting, and vague style of Lanthimos, he declares it “a masterpiece” of its type of cinema. “It’s perfect”, he states, “Pure action, no bullshit dialogue. It’s action to the highest degree of beauty and perfection. I think he [Paul Greengrass] is a very good director.”
It’s unsurprising that one of the elements Lanthimos admired in the movie was its “no bullshit dialogue” – it’s one of his most defining stylistic elements. Still, it seems Lanthimos won’t be making his own filler action film anytime soon: “I want more from my audience. It’s what I have to offer – to experience things without laying out everything I have to say. It’s about posing questions and not giving answers. We can’t all have the same answers for everything.”
