A virus that does not attack the lungs, but the memory, is the true protagonist of Apples, a film that takes us into a mental pandemic in which one does not die physically, but as a subject, as an identity.
From March 31st, exclusively on MioCinema, this directorial debut by director Christos Nikou, former assistant of Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster), introduces us to a dystopian world where it can happen, as happens to the protagonist Aris (Aris Servetalis), to take a bus and at the terminus realize that you have no memory of anything.
A scary nightmare, but quite common at least in the city that seems empty and gray as it must be almost by default in this type of work.
But what is surprising, making an easy parallel with the current pandemic, is the reactivity of the treatments, albeit with some dark implications.
In fact, Aris is immediately taken to a well-equipped identification and care center where he is first registered, with photo and identification number, and then forced to face a whole series of simple tests from which he is completely defeated.
One example above all: combining an image with music.
They make him hear a Christmas jingle and Aris chooses that of a classical ballet as an image.
But for the fifty-year-old of few words, and always struggling with an apple to eat, an alternative cure opens up in this efficient society: the so-called one of the 'new identity'.
Aris is provided with a house, a sum of money, and is prescribed daily tasks so that he can create new memories and document them with a camera (exactly a Polaroid).
Now the tasks entrusted to him are sometimes creepy, like going to a club and trying to have sex with the first one that happens, but Aris doesn't care and performs.
At a certain point it seems that the man is about to return to a normal life, especially after meeting Anna (Sofia Georgovasili), a person without memory like him, in turn inserted in a recovery program, but the truth for Aris will be a ' other.
"The last day before the lockdown in Greece we finished the film - says the director of Apples already presented at the Venice Film Festival at the opening of Orizzonti -. But it's just a coincidence. Even if with the current pandemic many will recognize themselves in some moods: loneliness, isolation, a sense of loss and a bit of uncertainty about the future. The film also talks about starting over. And we really hope that everything starts again, even in our lives. "
And again Nikou, a thirty-seven year old Athenian: "I had the idea of the film eight years ago, when I had to face the death of my father. He ate seven to ten apples a day and had an iron memory. So - he continues - I have tried to translate my private history into something universal. Why do people forget so easily? How selective is our memory? If we erase something that has hurt us, would we lose our whole existence? In the end, are we what we remember? these questions were buzzing in my head, and that's how we started writing the script. "
Regarding the title, Apples, Nikou says: "It's a dystopia, but the film is anything but futuristic. It's vintage, shot in 4: 3 format, there are Polaroids, audio casette, a kind of ode to everything that is. analog. I don't think dystopian films have to be futuristic, cold, distant: it's something I never understood. We wanted to make a completely analog film, because I think the excessive use of technology has made us lazier. There is no need to remember anything, you can record everything on the devices. And often computers, tablets, phones are branded Apple, which if you want is another ironic reading of the title ".