A man wakes up. He seems in shock. His clothes are stained in blood. He washes himself, puts on new clothes, leaves the house. He mounts a bicycle and drives to work - he's giving driving lessons. His speech is aggressive, he suddenly snaps and shouts at his driving student. Shocked by his reaction, he leaves the car and walks away - not minding the disturbed woman he just gave the shock of her life.
He walks empty streets, stops by a car, kicks and punches it, then runs away. What's left for him to do? Sport - why not some sport?! He goes to play some tennis, trying to take his mind off of something, but soon he's shouting at a formless opponent. As he goes under the shower, he tries to make contact to a young boy. "Can you lend me some shampoo?" The boy throws the bottle at it, and another one, and another one. "Clean yourself" he cries out, "and then go home! Go home to your family."
Our protagonist cleans himself, puts on some clothes, and then goes to a mall to buy a saw.
THE APE is a sober and unforgiving piece of filmic realism. In contrast to films like L'ENFANT (which I regularly trash due to its clueless and underwritten plot and unbelievable characters), the film holds up pretty well. Most of the time, it is an intense, bleak and disturbing watch, but the film indulges so much in its aesthetic it hardly entertains or enlightens. Which makes the second half of the film a bit of a painful experience - all that is left for the audience to do is wait for a resolution, whilst our protagonist stumbles through his day.
So in the THE APE is a nice small arthouse film, slow, bleak and quiet as realist filmmaking is - sadly, it would have made a much better short film due to its own emptiness. However, the best moment of the film occurs in its last minute, nicely tying the plot together, and saving the film from itself.
Rating - 7/10
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