Competition review - THE LOBSTER by Yorgos Lanthimos

You're under arrest for being alone. Yorgos Lanthimos recalls Orwell, Bunuel and Allen all at ones in his paranoid satire The Lobster, in competition at the 68th Cannes Film Festival.

As Springsteen said, "ain't nobody likes to be alone". Being alone, in the case of The Lobster, the english language feature debut of Yorgos Lanthimos, is illegal. Lanthimos returns to the big screen with another provocative vision of a paranoid future world. This is an Orwellian world where, by law, single people are secluded inside a hotel where they are given a 45 days ultimatum to find a partner - or they will be transformed into an animal of choice. Because the city is only for couples, the only other place for single people is in the woods, with a scary tribe called "loners", who practice a strict and sadistic enforcement of chastity.

The Lobster is a film of endless intelligence and creativity. It is, essentially, a satirical thriller drama that despite taking place in a futuristic world feels incredibly relevant to our age of online dating and Tinder. Nevertheless, it is as much a film about surveillance that might represent the psychological war inflicted on people by totalitarian state - this is after all a world in which Koreans have a limited amount of haircuts to choose from, so by attacking love, there is an attack on humanity. This latter point further links Lanthimos to Orwell. While the many ways in which the film can be read also highlights the interactive nature of the movie, that will not only pick up different interpretations according to different people, but is also bound to be read differently with second viewings.

Wit, creativeness and intelligence are made all the more powerfully satirical by the film's true driving force, its viciously dark laugh out loud deadpan humour that embraces The Lobster's essential absurdity. One look at the credits, where the characters remain nameless and are billed by their nickname that directly refer to their defects - lisping man, limping man, heartless woman, nosebleed woman - is enough to show the vast comedic potential of the film. On the other hand, the vastness of the grey and green of the surrounding environment - the film was shot in Ireland - makes for a welcome and eerie contrast of isolation.

Structurally the film is split into two. The film is narrated by a woman, that towards half of the film turns out "short sighted woman", whom David falls in love. Their romance, however, takes place in the loners tribe, where it is forbidden. Thus the hopelessness continues. Admittedly, the film's second half is a little less impressive. One of the greatest reasons why that is, is because Lanthimos is not entirely successful at making the dangers of the risk David and short sighted woman run simply by being in love. It is also because there is never a fulfillment of a type of seriousness to step it and conclude the film with a final grand statement - although that seems to be a usual feature by Lanthimos. Overall, however, there is reason to praise this original modernisation of something that filmmakers such as Luis Bunuel and Woody Allen have been praised for.