Apples

There is an epidemic, and the symptom is not death but forgetting. People lose their memory suddenly in the street, on the bus, at home, and do not remember who they are. For those who cannot be identified the state sets up a programme: they are given a new identity and build a new life by following instructions on cassettes. Ride a bicycle, watch a film, go to a party, talk to someone, photograph all of it and stick the pictures in an album. One man enters the programme and carries out the instructions. But some things he seems, without being able to explain it, to remember. Christos Nikou writes and directs. Aris Servetalis takes the lead. It is a Greek production and Nikou's first feature. The film opened the Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Festival in 2020 and was Greece's submission for the Oscars. Cate Blanchett came on as an executive producer for its international release. The form is close to the cold and distanced manner that has come forward in Greek cinema in recent years; Nikou had worked on Yorgos Lanthimos's set before this. The object the narrative uses is the apple; the lead keeps buying apples and the title comes from that. The folk belief connecting memory and apples sits underneath. The real question it asks is whether the forgetting is involuntary, and the answer is kept until the end. Who it is for: viewers who like European art cinema in a cold manner. Who it is not for: the pace is slow, the feeling is suppressed, and the narrative explains nothing.