Alps ★★★★☆

"Alps successfully captures the ridiculousness of human nature"

Alps is the eagerly awaiting follow up to Yorgos Lanthimos’s critically acclaimed, Oscar nominated, Dogtooth and certainly one of the hottest tickets at this year’s London Film Festival.

Much like Dogtooth, Alps’ surreal story is more effective the less you know about it. The film focuses on four peculiarly mismatched colleges. There’s a young, nubile gymnast, her demanding coach, an entrepreneurial paramedic and a caring, emotionally detached nurse. Together they’re collectively known as ‘The Alps’. They work as ‘substitutes’ but not in the conventional sense of the term, with the services they offer in keeping with Lanthimos’s obsessions with the mechanics of Hollywood and an inherent desire to escape the hardships of modern life. Needless to say what occurs is an absurd mix of jet black comedy and uncomfortably bizarre set pieces which, culminate in a series of surreal events.

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