Pity (Oiktos) is a 2018 Greek psychological drama that Babis Makridis directed, in collaboration with Efthymis Filippou, a writer known for working alongside Yorgos Lanthimos in films like Dogtooth and The Lobster.
Pity is one of the striking examples of the Greek Weird Wave. It presents human emotion in a surreal and chilling manner, probing the deeply disturbing and unique question: What happens when someone becomes addicted to being miserable?
With its deadpan tone, minimalist aesthetic, and eerie detachment, the film offers a sobering reflection of grief, identity, and emotional addiction.
Plot Overview
The unnamed main character is an average middle-aged male lawyer going through life in the most mundane manner possible: on autopilot. His at the moment wife lays comatose in a hospital, while there’s daily sympathy coming from his so-called friends and co-workers. People were nice enough to bake him cakes, shower him with hugs, and pamper him like a toddler.
And loves it.
The man’s world begins to unravel (not because she’s back) when his wife unexpectedly recovers. Witnessing her recovery makes him feel emptied. Stripped of sorrow, he no longer feels worthy without the affection his suffering elicited from others. Pity lost, and begins engineering misfortunes for himself to regain what he mentally has his sights set on, driving deeper into darkness.
An eerie calmness surrounds the self-sadist as his self-inflicted sorrow starts to settle around him like a shroud.
Character Descriptions
The Lawyer (Yannis Drakopoulos): An aloof, expressionless man. He descends into emotional manipulation as he becomes fixated on the attention grief earns him. It is saddening, yet profoundly disturbing to witness.
The Wife: While she is mostly in a comatose state throughout the film, her husband’s carefully fashioned narrative of woe comes undone when she suddenly regains consciousness.
The Son: The lawyer’s child embodies normalcy—or perhaps the silent, most profoundly affected victim of his father’s harrowing obsession.
Friends and Neighbors: They are substitutes for the sycophantic section of society that participates, albeit without their knowledge, in the protagonist’s demise.
Themes and Style
Pity Addiction: Instead of physical drugs, the main character fixates on emotion—specifically pity. This unusual and haunting dependency sets the film apart.
Validation By Suffering: The film looks into how grief can be utilized both as a cover and an instrument for affirmation.
Absurdly Emotional: The absurd, as expected from the Greek Weird Wave, is horrifyingly clinical and enhances discomfort.
Dark Humor Meets Minimalism: The absence of score combined with elongated silences and an abundance of tense yet symmetrical framing creates a void ripe with emotional detachment.
Often, the visuals are devoid of life, cast in the same bland setting the protagonist appears to be emotionally detached from. In the case of the more subtle elements in this film, the understated tone is so dry it almost approaches deadpan horror.
Conclusion
Pity cannot be described as comforting in any way. It is bleak, eerie, and corrosively satirical, reflecting the way people attempt to show empathy while revealing the more grotesque forms grief can take. Carried by the chillingly vacant performance of Yannis Drakopoulos, who embodies the character with a detatching gaze, the emotional void of the film is grounded into something palpable.
Yorgos Lanthimos, Béla Tarr, or Michael Haneke have one thing in common and that is Pity, which is a must watch for them. This cold and sharp film brings forth an utterly innovative and deeply shocking take on emotional dependence that is crafted with eerie precision and perpetual disturbance.
The movie is horrifying not because of violence or traditional monsters, but for the terrifying notion that sorrow is more comforting than the prospect of happiness.