Alps

Alps (, translit. Alpeis) is a 2011 Greek psychological drama film produced by Athina Rachel Tsangari and Yorgos Lanthimos and directed by Lanthimos. It stars Angeliki Papoulia, Ariane Labed and Aris Servetalis, and was co-written by Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou. It premiered in competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival where it won Osella for Best Screenplay, and also won the Official Competition Prize for New Directions in Cinema at the Sydney Film Festival in 2012. Plot The film opens with a gymnast complaining to her coach because he will not let her perform to a pop song, which he states she is not ready for. They are members of a group known as Alps, whose members offer, for a fee, to act as the recently deceased during visits to their grieving relatives. After a serious car crash involving a young female tennis player, the ambulance driver and leader of Alps, "Mont Blanc," recruits the assisting nurse into the group. The nurse, who has few obligations other than taking care of her ageing and widowed father, becomes "Monte Rosa" and grows attached to the tennis player, convincing herself that she will recover. The gymnast, believing she will die, states that she wants to be the stand-in for the tennis player after she passes. The tennis player does eventually die, and Monte Rosa offers the services of the Alps to her grieving parents while lying to the rest of the group that the girl has recovered. Alps offers its services to various grieving parties, including a married man mourning his fun-loving mistress, a blind woman with a deceased, philandering husband, and a man who is mourning an old friend. The clientele instructs the members of Alps as to what they should wear, do, and say, constructing scenarios of their choosing, which sometimes crosses into emotionally intimate or sexual encounters; however, these scenes tend to be emotionless and transactional. Despite this, Monte Rosa grows attached to the role of the tennis player and spends a lot of time with the grieving family, cuddling with the tennis player's father and pretending to date a classmate. The other members of Alps grow suspicious when Monte Rosa fails to show up to their meetings and lies about her whereabouts. Eventually the truth is discovered and Mont Blanc violently removes her from the group due to her dishonesty and incompetence.