APPLES (A) - This study of memory and alienation stands a cut above the Greek Weird Wave. The debut feature from Christos Nikou is perfectly paced and has heart to burn.
The film follows Aris (Aris Servetalis), who has an episode of disorientation on a bus and soon is treated as suffering from the latest pandemic: amnesia. There is no cure, but the government has set up a treatment program of re-immersion into society, helping people rebuild a new life, ostensibly until friends or family track down the sufferers. They are set up in an apartment and given cassette tapes and a Polaroid camera (it's an analog world) which guide them through a series of random activities designed to imbue them with fun and social interaction.
Aris seems like he'd be quite the sad sack even if it weren't for the amnesia. He does carry over, apparently, his love for apples. At some point, Aris has a random moment of recognition of his past, but he is spooked by it and literally runs from it. It's not clear (until the end) why he might be wary of starting to remember, if in fact that's what happened. Nikou un-nests this mystery slowly and sparingly, content to follow his hero on that series of mundane adventures.
Aris inevitably meets up with a fellow amnesiac as they both carry out the same lesson (going to see "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"), and a chaste connection develops. What happens next must be seen and savored. "Apples" has the droll humor and melancholy mien of last year's "Nine Days," the mix of dread and simple joys that derive from a term spent in limbo. It's a timely theme.
LOS CONDUCTOS (C+) - A filmmaker has to meet the viewer halfway. Good luck figuring out the timeline and the narrative of this dark (literally and figuratively), moody drama. I read the synopsis and even an online explanation of the film, and I still couldn't quite follow it.
Colombian writer-director Camilo Restrepo offers up a visual tone poem, along the lines of "Atlantis" from Ukraine, but he seems to be going out of his way to confuse us about what is happening in the present and what is happening in the past -- and even who is who. This is a start:
Pinky is on the run after freeing himself from the grip of a religious sect. He finds a place to squat, but misled by his own faith, he questions everything. As he tries to put back together the pieces of his life, violent memories return to haunt him, and ask for revenge.
In the opening scene, there's a guy who shoots someone in the gut, conks someone else on the head, and hops on a motorcycle; must be Pinky fleeing the barbaric cult. He has an apparent drug problem. Strike one. He slaves away in a T-shirt factory and sleeps on cardboard. At one point, a military marching band and clowns with balloons are apparently a veiled dramatization of whatever horrible act drove Pinky to escape.
Restrepo favors dim lighting, extreme close-ups and long static takes, often of rote tasks. He jumbles past and present, complicating it with unmarked re-creations. Some of the visuals are merely throwaway gimmicks; others are poetic (a bonfire's dancing sparks). No words are uttered for the first 10 minutes (in a movie that is 70 minutes long with credits); and then for a while Pinky won't stop cryptically explaining his murky past (taught to "kill, steal, dominate"). He is obsessed with his beloved handgun (on which he has etched, in Spanish, "This is my life").
I feel bad for this damaged man struggling to survive. But I would be better able to empathize with yet another junkie if he didn't just talk in riddles and parables. Restrepo is a little too clever for his own good. A viewer shouldn't have to work this hard to appreciate the author's message.
BONUS TRACK
The "Apples" trailer:
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