Is there such a thing as the greek new wave? Apples feels as though it fits neatly into the Lanthimos model. A low-fi high concept narrative which in this case revolves around random members of society finding themselves struck down with total amnesia. It’s an epidemic, but not as we know it. Nikou deadpans through the recovery process of his protagonist, whose strongest link to his past life is his love for apples. Aris is assigned mundane tasks by his medical team. Go out to a club and get drunk. Strike up a conversation with a stranger. Or, most movingly, befriend someone who is on the verge of death and accompany them to that end. The tone and the texture of the film is austere. Even when Aris goes out and dances, he does so in a minimal, semi-comic fashion. He has a brief relationship with a similarly afflicted young woman, which seems like it might turn into a love affair (and in the Hollywood remake undoubtably will) but wanes just at the moment it might have waxed.
There are hints in the narrative of Saramago’s Blindness, even Camus’ La Peste, and the idea of an epidemic has firmly seized hold in a Covid world. (Although one suspects Apples was conceived before the pandemic struck.) However, perhaps it makes more sense to posit the film within the overarching drama of Greece’s rumbling economic crisis. These are notes from the underground, Aris’ amnesia is the product of a society which has been compelled by forces beyond its control to sever social ties, reducing its citizens to lost souls, drifting through life searching for clues about the life they used to lead, or might have been leading. The result is something strangely muted and undramatic, a tale whispered in the corners by characters who look like someone you might know but can’t quite place.
Nb - Browsing imdb I discover Nikou was 2nd AD on Dogtooth)
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