Alps

"I'll do anything you want." It is a mark of the topsy-turvy world that Yorgos Lanthimos has created in his new film, Alps, that, when a female character offers herself with masochistic relish to a male colleague, we are unsurprised to learn that what he really wants from her is a haircut.

In this story of a mysterious group who meet in a gym hall for an unexplained purpose, the Greek director explores many of the same themes of control and role-playing that filled his darkly surreal Dogtooth. Like the earlier film, Alps also refuses to give up its meaning without a fight; teasingly, Lanthimos has the dictatorial leader announce he has chosen to call the group "Alps" precisely because "the name in no way reveals what we do."

But where the central dynamic of Dogtooth could be quickly apprehended, and offered itself up for political readings, Alps is an even more inscrutable, disturbing and, ultimately, despairing portrait of human relations.  [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]