Attenberg (2010)

Directed by: Athina Rachel Tsangari | 95 minutes | drama | Actors: Ariane Labed, Vangelis Mourikis, Evangelia Randou, Yorgos Lanthimos, Kostas Berikopoulos, Michel Demopoulos

What do we actually know about the recent Greek film? Not much, except that ‘Dogtooth’ won the ‘Un Certain Regard’ prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008. Athina Rachel Tsangari co-produced that film and director Yorgos Lanthimos is allowed to participate as an actor in her own ‘Attenberg’, which premiered at the 2010 Venice Film Festival with a Golden Lion nomination. Tsangari turns out to be a filmmaker who, in his own unique way, creates a setting for a well-known theme: the dance of love with death.

These two poles of the human condition are, of course, an inexhaustible source of creativity; Tsangari lets us see through the eyes of a young woman whose past seeps through drop by drop. In the opening scenes, 23-year-old Marina (Labed) learns French kissing from Bella (Randou), a barmaid in the industrial enclave. Marina lives there with her father (Mourikis), an unworldly architect who has to undergo chemotherapy. Why doesn’t the beautiful Marina know anything about love yet? It is a viewer’s question that is not answered; fortunately, because it would only distract from Marina’s journey to shape her adulthood.

Her character grows by the minute in this calm, carefully constructed Bildungsfilm. Marina wants to grow up, that much is clear. And everything is in service of that: the friendship with Bella and also the later affair with an unnamed ‘engineer’ (Lanthimos). The highlight is the farewell to father at the airport at the end of the film, but then we have already seen a lot of beautiful things, such as the tasteful dance steps of Marina and Bella to separate the film chapters. Or Sir David Attenborough’s animal world analogies. They are very exaggerated, but the message is clear: the only grip man has, he finds in his animal aspects.

‘Attenberg’ (that’s how ‘Attenborough’ is pronounced at the beginning of this Greek-language production) is a small arthouse film that is brimming with qualities. In it we see the still work of Lisandro Alonso and the playful gaze of Miranda July, but above all the own story of a woman who grows up in a man’s world; that the latter species is still given a loving role is one of the qualities of Tsangari, who surrounds himself with excellent actors – such as the modest, sparkling Labed – Best Actress in Venice – and the Greek topper Mourikis. As for the eternal companions love and death, there is no news under the sun, but Tsangari manages to keep it admirably light.