‘Poor Creatures’ is the sensation of the current billboard. His avalanche of Oscar nominations has given him an exposure that has made many viewers discover for the first time the Greek Yorgos Lanthimos, an extravagant creator of stories who has reached a certain aesthetic peak with his feminine reformulation of ‘Frankenstein’. But Lanthimos has been giving us first-rate extravagances for a long timesince its international revelation years ago, ‘Canino’.
However, other times he had approached science fiction, although always in his very peculiar style. It was his first film in English and with a cast of well-known names, ‘Lobster‘, which you can see on Filmin and Movistar Plus+. Although it is a film that completely lacks technological elements, its plot is reminiscent of science fiction fables from the beginning of the century. Although everything is narrated, of course, with a style that explores much more contemporary themes.
In ‘Lobster’ we are presented with a dystopian world about which we do not receive many clues, but we do receive a rule that must be followed: people without a partner are arrested and sent to a strange hotel where they have to find a partner within 45 days. If they do not succeed in that time, they will become an animal of their choice. Our timid protagonist, recently abandoned by his wife, chooses a lobster, a decision that is discussed by an entire staff of the hotel’s extravagant clients.
With the disconcerting sense of humor that characterizes practically all of his work, Lanthimos composes here a reflection on the need for love (if it exists) and the martyrdom of searching for it. A strange film that looks in the mirror of ‘1984’ or ‘Brave New World’ in its final stretch. When love ends up triumphing with a fart and some fuss vaguely similar to the fashionable dance.
