I don’t get Alps. Because I’m not familiar with mainstream contemporary Greek movies, I have no other film to compare and contrast Alps with so Alps could be satire, allegory or playing it straight. I do know that Alps is surreal. Alps shows people who practice a form of therapy in which the therapist imitates a dead person for their clients, the deceased’s loved ones, to facilitate the grieving process, but the line between therapy and their real life is very difficult to distinguish until things become even more extreme for one therapist. Everyone speaks in a monotone voice, which I recently learned is called the distancing effect or Verfremdungseffekt, which makes a viewer consciously aware that watching something instead of it naturally unfolding. Apparently it is crucial to know who is your favorite actor, and that actor is invariably American.
So what are viewers supposed to take away from this experience? As I watched Alps, I thought, “At least Alps isn’t as weird as Dogtooth, the last contemporary Greek film that I watched.” Both films were directed by Yorgos Lanthimos! How did Alps slip through the cracks?!? Alps is a film about people unable to live in the real world to a certain degree, but normal escapism and psychotic escapism seems gossamer thin and arbitrary. Alps seems to suggest that any fiction in life is an abomination, which does not bode well for movie lovers or makers. If you like avant-garde film, Alps was made for you.