Acts of mercy ( types of Kindness , Ireland, Greece, USA, UK, 2024, colour, 164 min.)
Directed By: Animatorgos Lanthimos
Scenario: Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthimis Filippou
Photo: Robbie R 6tan
Montage: Armorgos Mavropsaridis
Music: Jerskin Fendri < Br >
Played: Yorgos Stefanakos (R. M. F.), Margaret Qualley (Vivian/Martha/It/Ruth), Jesse Plemons (Robert/Daniels/Andrew), Fadeke Adeola (solver), Hong Chau (Sarah/Environment/Process), Tessa Bourgeois (Louise), Willem Dafoe (Raymond/He/Omi), Emma Stone (Rita/Liz/Emily)
Produced by: Element Pictures, Film4, Searchlight Pictures, TSG Entertainment
Festivals, Awards : Cannes 2024: Best Actor award; s / 2024; m / 2024; Brussels 2024; Lisbon 2024-IndieLisboa; London-Sundance 2024; La Valetta 2024; Karlovy Vary 2024
Audience reaction: surprisingly restrained, but sympathetic to the greatest extent
Critical response: sympathetic to the greatest extent, but without enthusiasm
Distribution: Blitz Video & Distribution
Genre: drama
Story
A triptych that contemplates power, control and free will through cinematic images. A man who is trying to escape his fate, who is convinced that he has been deprived of all the opportunity to choose, nevertheless regains some courage and decides to take his life into his own hands. When, after a long time, his wife returns to his home and explains that she was about to drown, the policeman, observing her behavior, begins to doubt her story very much. Moreover, he even thinks about the fact that this woman is not his wife at all. A woman is looking for someone, a person of the female sex, who has been prophesied to stand out and to become a spiritual leader …
Comment
"To those who accuse Lanthimos of being a soulless director, immersed in his boudoir sadism, acts of mercy prove that the main goal of his work is to show a person as a vulnerable creature, ready to do anything to be loved. In this tart, vitriol – infused triptych, a structuralist revision of the film omnibus, in which each episode echoes the next – in a coherent and at the same time surprising way – and which once again reveals the Greek director as a great director of actors (Plemons-king), love is a prison from which no one wants (or can) escape.«
Sergi S Animnchez, Fotogramas
"Shot on a 'small budget' in Lanthimos ' long post – production process of extravagant , Oscar – winning unhappy creatures, willy-nilly , the cheerfully unflattering acts of mercy act as an allergic reaction to the mainstream success the director has enjoyed-or at least benefited financially-since switching from Greek to English with lobster in 2015. Constantly interesting, rarely pleasant, and somehow muffled and exaggerated at the same time – this almost three-hour [film] is a magnificent monument to human love that shows almost no interest in whether we will actually love it.«
David Ehrlich, Indieamentire