Alps (Alpeis)

Year: 2011
Country: GREECE
Run Time: 93 minutes

ALPS is a bizarre film about a group of people who pretend to be recently departed loved ones, ostensibly to help those who have suffered loss work through their grief. A "club" of four meets in a gym to plan their interactions with bereaved families. They engage in a kind of rote play-acting where they take on the persona of the dead person and reenact moments with that person's family. One club member is a hospital nurse in real life—an empathetic, sad-eyed woman who tries to help several people, including an older man who misses his dead daughter and likes ballroom dancing; a lamp salesman with whom she speaks English since his departed lover was Canadian; and a blind woman, for whom she plays the part of a former friend. But when a teenage patient in the nurse's hospital dies, she insinuates herself into the girl's family a bit too insistently. ALPS explores our dependency on the familiar and our need for illusion in times of grief. It also questions the cruelties people tolerate in order to belong. (In Greek with subtitles) – B.B.

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