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Greece, 2010, 95 Minute Running Time Genre/Subjects: Dark Comedy, Drama, Medical/Health, Psychological, Womens Issues Program: Contemporary World CinemaLanguage: Greek English Subtitles
DIRECTOR: Athina Rachel Tsangari Producer: Maria Hatzakou, Yorgos Lanthimos, Iraklis Mavroidis, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Angelos VenetisEditor: Sandrine Cheyrol, Matt JohnsonScreenwriter: Athina Rachel TsangariCinematographer: Thimios BakatakisPrincipal Cast: Ariane Labed, Vangelis Mourikis, Evangelia Randou, Yorgos Lanthimos
In a small, industrial Greek town, Marina is finally ready to undergo a sexual awakening at the age of 23. Thus unfolds the human experience in Attenberg, Athina Rachel Tsangari’s quirky, playful drama about sex, death, and synchronized dancing.
Marina may not be keen to the ways of the world, but she is confident as her best friend, Bella, schools her in the art of love with an over-the-top tutorial in French kissing; as the documentaries of Sir David Attenborough teach her about the wild world of animals; and above all as she awkwardly attempts to lose her virginity.
Meanwhile, Marina’s father is dying; in that light, her forays into sex, at once removed and intimate, begin to parallel her investigation of life and death, interspersed with formalized dancing scenes that bridge the gap between two realities.
The title comes from Marina’s mispronunciation of Attenborough’s name—appropriately enough for a film whose concern with the meaning of subjectivity could almost be mistaken for highbrow intellectualism, but for Tsangari’s witty, tongue-in-cheek (no pun intended) sense of humor. —MATTHEW CAMPBELL