Ani­mal – first-look review

Hotel Mirage is an all-inclu­sive resort on an unnamed Greek island that pro­vides the back­drop to Sofia Exarchou’s sec­ond fea­ture. Day in, day out, a group of hard­work­ing ani­ma­teurs are tasked with per­form­ing for the hotel’s guests, ensur­ing their con­stant enter­tain­ment. Per­form­ing mon­keys of the sea­son­al vari­ety. Though care­ful­ly depict­ing the labour con­di­tions and stark class con­trasts that become appar­ent with­in such arrange­ments, the film is more com­mit­ted to delin­eat­ing a detailed, affect­ing por­trait of its cen­tral figure.

As Exar­chou delves into the inner work­ings of this car­ni­va­lesque troupe made up of sea­son­al per­form­ers hail­ing from Greece and East­ern Europe, it becomes clear that this is a con­stel­la­tion that depends on the big star in the mid­dle: Kalia (Dim­i­tra Vlagopoulou), one of the resort’s main enter­tain­ers and a vet­er­an of the trade. It’s only fair – she soaks up every ray of the spot­light, and at times evokes the grunge-glam, tough-guy ener­gy of Greek pop icon Anna Vis­si (albeit look­ing and sound­ing noth­ing like the pop­u­lar singer). This will have unof­fi­cial­ly been Kalia’s sev­en­teenth year at the rodeo, and she’s grown more than accus­tomed to putting on a show the only way she has ever known how, over and over again.

A con­sid­er­able chunk of the film is spent in a repet­i­tive loop, with time being spent rehears­ing and per­form­ing the same set of rou­tines, or ​“sketch­es” as the ani­ma­teurs call them. When they’re not work­ing, they drink them­selves silly.

With the arrival of some new­com­ers to the troupe, Kalia begins to grav­i­tate towards sev­en­teen-year-old Eva (Flo­maria Papada­ki) from Poland, whom she takes under her wing, show­ing her the ropes: Stuff your bra with as much padding as pos­si­ble. Dance. Drink. Sing. Smile. Fuck. Par­ty. Per­form. We spend much less time with Eva. Her slight­ly under­cooked char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion serves more as an uneasy fore­shad­ow­ing of the way the sea­son­al enter­tain­ment cook­ie will even­tu­al­ly crum­ble for a woman like Kalia.

When a drunk­en encounter with an Aus­tri­an tourist in a dingy motel room allows Kalia to become vul­ner­a­ble, she likens her­self to a juke­box: ​“Every­thing you can imag­ine. You want Ori­en­tal? You want a sexy thing? Tra­di­tion­al? You order, I dance. Juke­box”. Her final per­for­mance of Baccara’s ​’70s hit ​‘Yes Sir, I Can Boo­gie’ at a karaōke bar is enough to elic­it goose­bumps. Vlagopoulou’s per­for­mance here is tru­ly some­thing to behold. She takes us through her character’s emo­tion­al peaks and troughs with raw inten­si­ty and nat­u­ral­ism – cou­pled with expert edit­ing and sound design, Exar­chou proves that a film with a con­fig­u­ra­tion as sim­ple as this can reach a whole new dimen­sion of emo­tion­al resonance.