This story originally appeared in our sister publication, Portland Mercury.

Bugonia, the ninth and latest feature from Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, distrusts the human body.

Bodies, for Lanthimos, are ill-fitting shells. Uncomfortable carapaces. We wear them, often awkwardly, because we have to, but we’re typically struggling with the urge to take them off, trade them out, or—having failed to control our own—control those of others. Bodies betray us, fall apart, stop working, or inadequately represent our true selves. Maybe, if we’re determined enough, we can inhabit a different body by taking someone else’s.

In The Lobster (2014), Lanthimos’s strange and unsettling rom-com, single people are given a short time to find a romantic partner or risk being transformed into an animal of

See Full Page