When I was growing up, I had this recurring nightmare. It wasn’t an every night ordeal. No, it managed to seep into my head every few weeks when I thought it may have gone away. In it, I’m walking on a woodland path. It’s sunny. Warm, as far you can ever tell in a dream. I’m alone until I come across some friends, people I’ve known a long time. Yet, when I say hi, they have no clue who I am. That’s when the terror sets in. Where the nightmare goes from there is always a different. It might jump to a house or a school. The constant fact is that no one remembers who I am. I found it so terrifying, as many who have similar dreams and nightmares do, because identity is maintained by memory. Both ours and those of people we know and love.
In his film Apples (2022), writer-director Christos Nikou centers the relationship between memory and identity in a sparse science-fiction tale. Set during an undetermined year, a plague of sorts sweeps a city. The only symptom is amnesia. People could be in the middle of doing anything when it sets in and suddenly, it’s all blank. So seems to be the case for Aris (Aris Servetalis) when he’s roused on a bus at the end of the line. He settles into a hospital where patients wait for “someone to remember” and collect them. When no one comes for Aris, the doctors ask if he wants to enroll in a program called “New Identity.” They set him up in an apartment, and give him instructions to “make new memories” through tapes delivered daily. Their only requirement: he takes polaroids while completing every task.
The set-up provides a hazy satirical bent for Nikou’s story. The tasks the doctors require start out normal enough. Aris must ride a bike, make a friend, and so on. But the requirements rapidly veer into head-scratching territory. In one supremely awkward scene, Aris has to visit a strip club and solicit a private dance. The doctor’s matter-of-fact narration while saying things like “and you can grab whatever parts of her you want” sets the moment up, which Aris sends home by interrupting the lap dance to ask the dancer to pose for a photo. Once we enter the realm of crashing a car and seeking out a one-night stand, it’s abjectly clear that Apples is using the doctors to take a swing at the photo-sharing obsessed culture we live in. I call it hazy though because it never adds up to any more than acerbic observation.
Directorially, Nikou clearly channels his friend Yorgos Lanthimos. However, I found myself thinking most of Robert Bresson while watching Apples. The Frenchman’s meticulous mise-en-scène and tendency to require flat performances have an echo here. Nikou shoots in a boxy 4:3 aspect ratio and favors a static camera pointed at ascetic actors. The choices lend Apples a dry melancholy, especially as Servetalis has to carry out the more inane memory tasks. As a result, the first act drags, picking up pace and verve when fellow amnesiac Anna (Sofia Georgovassili) enters the story. Georgovassili imbues the film with a spark that none of the other performers channel, a choice that seems designed to shake up the story. It works, and she and Servetalis work well together, filling Nikou’s still frames with more energy. The preceding slowness is a clear directorial choice, but one that unfurls too systematically for its own good.
Even so, what pulls Apples together into a lingering experience is an exceptional third act. From the top, Nikou telegraphs that Aris may not be exactly who he presents to be. That inkling pays off in the final stretch when we learn that Aris is not in fact suffering from the amnesiac plague. Instead, he is grieving the death of his wife and clearly throwing himself into what he perceives as a chance to start over. There is a scene where Aris eats dinner alone. He sits at the bar sipping his soup while a happy couple dances behind him. He looks at them a few times, an aching look on his face. Nikou shoots it so they, and everything other than Aris, are out of focus. It’s an approach used to great effect through Apples, and here underscores the isolation Aris feels in every aspect of his world.
On the whole, I found Apples to be brilliant in fits and starts if a collectively obtuse experience. Nikou filters heady ideas of self, community, and grief into his film, but his nebulous approach to storytelling sands down the impact they can have. He has a clear eye for image-making and there are a handful of scenes in Apples, including the aforementioned dinner, which I’ll be mulling over for a long time. I only wish it was more balanced in the first two acts so it worked better as a complete experience.
Apples is currently playing in select theaters courtesy of Cohen Media Group.
writer-director Christos Nikou plumbs ideas of memory and identity for a hazy yet moving satirical drama
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GVN Rating 7
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Devin McGrath-Conwell holds a B.A. in Film / English from Middlebury College and is currently pursuing an MFA in Screenwriting from Emerson College. His obsessions include all things horror, David Lynch, the darkest of satires, and Billy Joel. Devin’s writing has also appeared in publications such as Filmhounds Magazine, Film Cred, Horror Homeroom, and Cinema Scholars.