by Cláudio Alves

Since his third feature opened at the 2009 Cannes Film festival, Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos has been something of an international sensation. Dogtooth, that masterpiece of perverted domesticity, even conquered a surprising Academy-Award nomination along with its sterling reviews. From relative obscurity, Lanthimos thus became a household name for cinephiles all over the world and his next projects were followed with breathless anticipation. The formalistic precision, violent nature of his scenarios and the unsettling horror of the stories enchanted many and disgusted even more.

All of these choices are transgressive as it's fitting of the cinema of the Greek Weird Wave. However, such elements aren't as uncommon as many suppose. If you look hard enough through the wilderness of festival offerings, it's easy to find many similar aesthetic and narrative propositions. Yorgos Lanthimos does them with rare perfection, but that doesn't mean they are radically rare. Much more off-beat and idiosyncratic is the way this provocative filmmaker works with actors…