The loss of a loved one leaves a couple in a strange situation in this odd rumination on the afterlife, headlined by 'Dogtooth' star Angeliki Papoulia.
Even without the “Welcome to Marathon” flyer that greets Katerina (Angeliki Papoulia) and Yannis (Vangelis Mourikis) upon their arrival in “Arcadia,” it’s clear that they’ve entered one of the strangest corners of Greece: a holiday resort where they’ll investigate the untimely death of a loved one. An unnerving and curious meditation on grief, Yorgos Zois’ second feature will satisfy those looking for deeper cuts from the Greek Weird Wave than Yorgos Lanthimos and Christos Nikou, but will have limited appeal to those who generally seek solace in the movies; Zois offers more of the opposite.
Still, there’s something compelling at the core of “Arcadia,” which takes literally the idea that Marathon becomes a ghost town in the off-season. In a place where tourists come and go but the residents who follow their every whim can feel like they’re in purgatory, Katerina and Yannis aren’t in the mood for a vacation when they’re forced to stick around for an autopsy following a tragic car crash to identify a body that’s speculated to be their daughter. Instead of staying in a hotel, the couple, at Yannis’ urging, decide to take over the suddenly vacant rental house where the deceased was booked, perhaps giving them some answers about what happened leading up to a fatal car crash. Instead, it only raises more questions, prompting Yannis to dive into the pills he can prescribe himself as a doctor, while Katerina accepts an invitation from local teen Nikos (Asterios Rimagmos Rigas), who takes her along the beach to a bar known as Arcadia to blow off some steam.
Somehow, the fact that everyone in Arcadia is naked isn't the most disturbing thing that happens in Nikos' company that night, with the teen confessing that he'd be nearly 40 now if he hadn't died in the house the couple are currently staying in. Katerina is told by another ghost that it's the living "who are haunting us, not the other way around." Given the way humans wander grimly around Marathon without much of a pulse, there doesn't seem to be much difference between the ghosts and their flesh-and-blood counterparts; Zois presents them that way for more admirable reasons than to save on the film's VFX budget.
