ARCADIA – Review by Leslie Combemale
Even if you don’t know the film movement known as “Greek Weird Wave”, you’ve probably seen or heard about films ascribed to it, the most famous of which are by Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth, Poor Things, and this year’s Begonia). The films of this movement feature surreal narratives, a cool, distanced camera gaze, and a critical consideration of societal or familial structures.
With its exploration of the strange place between life and death, and atmosphere of existential dread, Yorgos Zios’s second feature Arcadia finds itself fitting comfortably within the Greek Weird Wave framework. In essence, it plays out as a modern Greek tragedy, in which the dead and the living co-mingle, wandering in a purgatory of unresolved grief, as they consider or try to reconcile themselves to their pasts, presents, and futures.
Arcadia opens on an alternately distressed and detached duo, neurologist Katerina (Angeliki Papoulia) and ex-doctor Yannis (Vangelis Mourikis). They are in a car on their way to an isolated coastal town in Greece. It becomes clear Yannis is there to identify his wife, an accident victim killed in a location and with a person that suggests she was having an affair. The two try to parse out what happened and why, in a bizarre story that slowly unfolds to show how the dead and the living often both live in a sort of world in-between, trapped by fragmented memories and choices both mundane and pivotal, unable to move forward.
If that description sounds a bit vague, it’s because in Arcadia, there are meant to be reveals along the way of its hour and 39 minute screentime. For myself, I predicted several of those reveals quite early, but maybe that’s because I’ve seen a lot of surreal ghost-infested indie dramas. I was also not phased, although some viewers may be, by the metaphor about memory, and the power of being physically and emotionally present in evoking them. That is to say, be prepared for randomly placed sex and nudity. Be prepared to be taken over by a pervasive existential dread and ennui.
One of the more interesting aspects of the film is the juxtaposition of the name Arcadia, which is what the faded beach bar populated with tragic characters is called in the film, against the meaning of the word. An arcadia is an idyllic, peaceful setting that inspires comfort and contentment. It is an unattainable Eden. With that name, it becomes clear very quickly that a sort of purgatory is inevitable for both the dead and the living, and at that point, it is incumbent upon Zios and his co-screenwriter Konstantina Kotzamani to show us why. Though the results are mixed, the journey is at least an interesting one that should lead to deeper philosophical questions.
3 out of 5 stars.
