Christos Nikou, who was a second assistant director for Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Dogtooth” (2009), makes his feature length directorial debut with “Apples” (2020), which Greece submitted for the Best International Feature Film category of the 93rd Academy Awards in 2021. During a pandemic that causes amnesia, the film starts with a man, 14842 (Aris Servetalis), just before he gets diagnosed with the illness, continues to follow him as he is admitted to the Disturbed Memory Department of the Neurological Hospital and enrolls in the New Identity Program, which teaches people how to live again.
Unlike the prevalent image of Greek ancient ruins and picturesque ocean countryside, “Apples” shoots Athens as a city reminiscent of Pedro Almodóvar’s Madrid though cleaner and safer. People are often dwarfed in comparison to their surroundings and appear isolated in the landscape. (Also Greek sounded like Spanish.) This Athens seems out of step with our time: Polaroid cameras, cassette players, old-fashioned music, and audio recording on reels. It is as if it is set in a parallel earlier universe from ours.
Nikou is not as acerbic as Lanthimos so if you have had enough of pandemics and witnessing the underbelly of society, “Apples” will not traumatize you. While Nikou does skewer societal conventions as absurd, the film has an underlying sweetness and melancholy, which implies that anyone, besides the doctors, have led rich lives with authentic connection and organic emotion. If American viewers draw broad conclusions about Greek society after watching this film, it will mostly be good—no wonder they live longer. There are no images of chaos, violence, and upheaval. Strangers do not take advantage of the amnesiacs but know the exact way to care for them until authorities arrive. There are systems in place to care for the sick. The primary goal is not to reinsert them into society based on their usefulness and get them employed. The amnesiacs are given a place to live, clothes, food, money, and free time to discover who they are even though the guiding process is fraught with issues.
The doctors’ concept of a universal normal life and common knowledge runs the gamut from being spot on, such as riding a bike, to dangerous and lacking in empathy. The senior doctor records instructions for the amnesiacs to follow, and the amnesiacs are expected to take a photograph to prove that they followed the doctors’ instructions. It echoes our selfie culture where people would prefer to document an event rather than experience and savor it. These recordings seek to recreate the doctors’ ideal: a predominantly heteronormative world with no instructions regarding consent, but just executing the instructions without considering the impact on the other person. Instead of just organically having experiences, the doctors are teaching their patients that a lot of life is going through the motions regardless of whether the patient enjoys it or any consideration for the other person who may be oblivious to being part of an exercise and feel used. The doctors are intrusive with no understanding of privacy, boundaries, or appropriateness. Nikou’s sweetness comes out because he never explores the worst-case scenario of completing these exercises: accidental death or sexual assault. Instead of memories, their photo albums document simulations.
With an environment framed as nurturing, it is easier to follow 14842’s emotional journey without worrying about him. “Apples” raises doubt regarding whether he suffers from the illness or is faking it to find relief from a mysterious loss. Nikou does not make the film ambiguous, and by the end, you will want to rewatch the film to notice the clues that you may have missed the first time around. The film gets better with repeat viewings, and the significance of the opening images becomes retroactively clear. Nikou succeeds at not making us resent 14842 if he is faking it and eager to discover why someone would want to abandon their life for a clean slate. It is reminiscent of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (2004).
Servetalis is an amazing physical actor, and his face is a portrait of contradictions—expressive and inscrutable. The entire cast of amnesiacs have a difficult task to pull off: to be childlike because everything seems new and they are oblivious to actions’ consequences, but also as adults, have physical and emotional limitations and awareness that comes with having a mature brain. 14842’s life before and after the onset of his alleged illness shares numerous qualities: monochromatic with punctuations of color, a solitary existence with only brief human interactions and certain immutable routines such as sitting and staring into space or listening to music.
Watching Servetalis dutifully follow the New Identity Program provides the comedic relief. One scene is retroactively poignant when he has to an associate an illustration with a Christmas song and keeps failing. The emblematic image is a grown man posing on a kid’s bike. 14842’s visit to a strip club baffles the strippers—he breaks rules about touching, but not in spirit. Immediately afterwards, 14842 walks and watches a black and white analog television show a couple inn love. His organic, unguided experiences seem to revolve around food: buying food from a vendor in the park, buying apples at the grocer, baking a cake. If 14842 has an indelible characteristic, it is his compulsive consumption of apples. Later the film reveals a less well-known health benefit to apples, but most viewers will bring the mythic one, a forbidden fruit and as a source of knowledge. While the program fails to get amnesiacs to reenter human society by making genuine, reciprocal connections, not just interacting with people based on their usefulness, it does succeed at helping 14842 sustain human contact.
Over the course of “Apples,” as the film contrasts 14842’s experiences with other amnesiacs, he discovers that a new identity does not come with immunity to pain and loss. I was relieved when a potential romantic storyline takes a sharp turn, and he realizes that he is just a checkmark on a to do list. 14842 has an epiphany and decides to the flee the life of an amnesiac. If he must live, he decides to embrace his individual pain and loss instead of the superficial, impersonal collateral sorrow that a new identity provides. His numbness and depression give way to acceptance, but in its wake, the pandemic becomes a loss of rich experiences. The film is about the importance of personal history in creating community and new memories.
If I had to critique “Apples,” the film shows him go on a day trip with a woman amnesiac, but we do not see the challenge. Until the end of the movie, the New Identity Program felt like a metaphor for autistic people trying to live a neurotypical life that does not fit by going through the motions of conventional rites of passage, but by the denouement, I realized that the film was about grappling with emerging from depression. If it was made before the pandemic, it is prophetic for nailing the difficulty of reentering society after a cataclysm and the grotesqueness of embracing the new normal while surrounded by individual crisis.
