He went to film school in Greece, expecting a career making commercials. Now, he’s made an award-winning period drama starring Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone
Thirteen years ago, Yorgos Lanthimos made a micro-budget film called Kinetta. Filmed in the shakiest hand-held style, it featured three actors mooching around hotels and hospitals in a rundown Greek coastal town, sometimes enacting fight scenes that resembled avant-garde choreography rehearsals. There was barely any dialogue, except when one character barked detailed directions at the others. Oh, and there was the occasional go-karting sequence. Even for those of us who like our art films bleakly inscrutable, Kinetta was a tall order.
Back then, you might have concluded that Lanthimos was the director Least Likely To. Least likely to be a magnet for actors of the starry calibre of Nicole Kidman, Colin Farrell, Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz. Least likely to be one of the names that first arise when film people talk about the exciting new developments in Europe. Least likely to make a sumptuous period piece that’s a scabrous, subversive addition to the prestigious costume lineage of Tom Jones, The Draughtsman’s Contract and Barry Lyndon. And least likely to find himself seated in a vast, stately reception room – green, gold and imposingly Georgian – in Dublin’s Merrion hotel to discuss the film in question, The Favourite.
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