Berlinale Film Festival Review: Arcadia – “an interesting concept”

A tragic car accident brings together a group of alive and dead individuals experiencing a great sense of loss.

Upon walking up Katerina is surprised to discover that she is in the backseat of a vehicle driven by a disgraced doctor Yannis; they are on their way to identify the body of automotive accident victim who is only seen by those onscreen.  More discoveries are made as it is learned that the deceased was having an affair with a patient who died alongside her in the car.  Strange things begin to happen like a vase shattering and immediately afterwards is shown to be fully intact which leads the viewer to learn that spirits are walking alongside those who are grieving their passing and that both need to learn how to let each other go in order to emotionally move on.

A visual motif is the importance of footwear for those passing onto a spiritual purgatory that coexists with the unaware living.  The grief is spread around with a landlord having lost her teenage son to a heart attack, a police officer struggling to cope with the disappearance of his faithful canine companion, and a man and woman learning that their partners were having an affair together.  The narrative is structured in such a way that the spirit and living storylines are given enough time to develop each of the characters.   The spirits appear fully in their earthly form reflecting the fact that the grief is so pronounced that their presence is very much alive.

One cannot help but think that Vangelis Mourikis, who portrays Yannis, is an even more rumpled version of Al Pacino while Angeliki Papoulia as Katerina does feel like someone emotionally torn by what she is experiencing and witnessing.  A nice touch was the inclusion of the police dog storyline as people really do treat animals as surrogate family members; however, the sex and nudity never rise above the level of a teenage wet dream.  What was done well was not being happenstance with the rules, especially when it comes to the interactions between the dead and living. Overall, an interesting concept but it still feels rather ordinary than spiritually affirming.

Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer who currently resides in Canada; he can be found at LinkedIn.