Kinds of Kindness (2024)
The absurdity of loyalty.
Presentation:
Yorgos Lanthimos creates an episodic film in 3 parts, with seemingly no relation to each other. Characters swap roles leading to somewhat disjointed storytelling apart from one connecting theme. Lanthimos returns to strong barrel distortion anamorphic to create his absurdist reality with a subtle dark humor. The weirdness is more controlled than previous films, which make it feel weaker than some of his stranger films like The Lobster.
Analysis:
Part 1 we have a man going to any lengths to obey a benevolent boss while losing all autonomy. Part 2 we have a man whose wife goes missing on a dog island only to be replaced by a dog disgused as his wife that will do any bidding of his including kill itself. Part 3 we have the culmination of loyalty, a cult, where people will do ridiculous things for the sake of belonging to the group. Loyalty is the central theme to all of these stories. From the title, it is suggested that Lanthimos views the act of loyalty as a kind of kindness, and tries to deconstruct it to its extreme version in the same way he has done in Dogtooth. He makes a decent point about it. Loyalty is something nearly every society and person values, and yet it can be ridiculous to what ends we will follow others. Dogs are also known to be loyal creatures, which is the main reveal of Lanthimos' vision for this theme. Despite this curious idea, it is implemented in a less compelling stories spread out thinly and I'm not sure if enjoyers of such philisophical material will care anyway.
Conclusion:
Ultimately, each part is independent from each other, making the film feel like 3 separate films. It makes you wonder what’s the point? It doesn’t really add to the weirdness for me and just feels weak. Perhaps there is some validity to this format, like memories or moments of bizarreness, but each installment isn’t particularly bizarre, compelling or interesting compared to a singularly distorted universe. Lanthimos attempts to deconstruct reality and logic like all his movies and illustrate the absurdity of our society and perhaps there might be some interesting perspectives to be had, but it is not entertainment. People will only like the idea of this film rather than the story itself. It’s nearly pointless, but just interesting enough to have moments of greatness to keep you watching.
Recommendations
A deceptively smug lesson.