Attenberg

Ariane Labed plays Marina, a repressed young woman stuck in a boring factory town in Greece, in Attenberg, the Greek submission for the 2012 Best Foreign Language Academy Award. I have never WTF?’d this hard at a film’s opening; anyone who sees Attenberg will probably understand why. (Think Cruel Intentions, only 20 times more awkward.) This is one strange little flick. Scenes of Marina and her best friend, Bella (Evangelia Randou), trying to make their humdrum lives more exciting are quite odd. They are intercut with scenes of Marina and her father (Vangelis Mourikis) as he fights a terminal ailment, and scenes of her boring job at the factory. The movie bounces around with no real cohesion, other than the fact that it all concerns Marina and her dark, bored, emotionless existence. It’s a bizarre and, at times, slightly uncomfortable viewing experience—but an interesting one.