The Ape

There’s always one at every film festival. Devoid of positive attributes, The Ape is a frustrating and thoroughly tedious moviegoing experience that primarily comes off as a cinematic endurance test that’s been designed to weed out all but the most avant-garde of viewers. The almost comically thin storyline, which follows a Swedish driving instructor (Olle Sarri’s Krister) as he goes about his day and attempts to piece together his (apparently brutal) actions from the night before, is exacerbated by Jesper Ganslandt’s eye-rollingly hackneyed directorial choices, as the less-than-competent filmmaker offers up precisely the sort of low-key visuals one has come to fear from movies of this ilk (eg shaky camerawork, long, pointless takes, etc). And while the mystery of just what happened to Krister (he does, after all, wake up covered in blood) kind of sustains the viewer’s interest for a little while, the relentlessly uneventful nature of Ganslandt’s screenplay ensures that the movie grows more and more interminable as it progresses (ie it ultimately feels as though 90% of The Ape simply consists of interludes in which Krister wanders from one place to the next). The ongoing emphasis on Krister’s entirely mundane activities (eg he participates in a quick tennis match) lends the proceedings a vibe of aggressive pointlessness that’s nothing short of mind-numbing in its ferocity, with the pervasive lack of context preventing the viewer from working up even the slightest bit of interest in the central character’s plight. The laughably pretentious conclusion, which boasts the most baffling final line since Alain Resnais’ Les herbes folles, cements The Ape‘s place as an unwatchable ordeal of epic proportions, and it’s impossible to envision a more objectionable waste of time rolling down the pike in the weeks and months to come.

no stars out of ****