GREEK FILM FESTIVAL: You can forget Ryan Gosling’s minimalist vehicular machismo, the new driver who can’t be shaken up is Aris Servetalis’ Man, the seated star of Greek filmmaker Babis Makridis’ unyielding, deadpan tribute to a life dedicated to satisfying the inexplicable. Forgot those five minute windows, the hollowed-out Man – he’s present, but his personality is as smoothly blank as his driving – never steps out of his vehicle, appearing to live within his nondescript Volvo as he undertakes a daily trip to bring honey to an older overseer (Yannis Bostantzoglou) who tends to be found stretched out on the ground in wait of his golden nectar.
The picture reverses the concern of so much recent Greek cinema
L, you may not be surprised to know, is a Greek film. It’s an offshoot of the New Greek Weird Wave, and the first-time director co-wrote the movie with Efthymis Filippou, who previously co-wrote Dogtooth and Alps with acclaimed new director Yorgos Lanthimos. The latter’s movies are biting (sometimes literally), bitter and unexpectedly moving, but Makridis might be a low-budget acolyte of Peter Greenaway, such is his tendency to focus on visual discipline and overt design. If Man never removes himself from a vehicle, nor does the camera move – both need to be propelled by an engine, a concept that implicitly suggests a removal from humanity.
The picture, which never breaks ranks to contemplate its own blackly surreal cinematic DNA, reverses the concern of so much recent Greek cinema. The problem is here not unemployment and social decay, it’s a rigid dedication to work. Man has to rendezvous weekly to see his wife (Nota Cherniavsky) and children, who pull up alongside him in their own car. His daily honey trips are a kind of ritual, and the only interludes are brief visits with a friend (Stavros Raptis) and the invocation of a former colleague who looked so much like a bear – a creature that enjoys honey – that a hunter killed him.
Aris Servetalis, who also starred in Alps, has a doleful moustache and a thin frame; at one stage he repeats his honey pick-up lines like a tape recorder running in a loop at double speed. He has the concerns of humanity – he lets his son drive the car briefly, sitting on his lap, and his repeated praise of 'very nice" uncomfortably echoes Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat – but not the emotional range, which is why his dismissal from his position inspires an atonal comic state. The Man circles a roundabout endlessly, screaming but still not actually displaying emotion. Then he transfers allegiance to a motorbike (the sleeping is more difficult).
Those tendrils of humour, or the peculiar rhythms of the dialogue and their delivery, are never less than dry in their execution and intent, and the mysteries of L demand not understanding but an unquestioning acceptance of their repetition. There’s a hint of J.G. Ballard, naturally given the subject matter, but like the long, static shots that dominate the compositions, Babis Makridis is fixed on these characters and their world. He’s not about to meet you halfway, but it’s worth heading towards him.
