Willem Dafoe is in the Greek capital to promote his new movie “Inside” by Greek director Vasilis Katsoupis.
‘Inside’ premiered to the world at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival on 20 February 2023. It will be released in the United States on 17 March 2023, by Focus Features.
Willem Dafoe plays an art thief in ‘Inside’
‘Inside’ tells the story of Nemo (Willem Dafoe), an art thief trapped in a New York penthouse after his heist does not go as planned. Locked inside with nothing but priceless works of art, he must use all his cunning and resourcefulness to survive.
Before Nemo can escape with what he’s trying to steal, the alarms go off, activating security measures that include thick glass and concrete walls.
It is unknown just how much time it will take for someone to find Nemo, given how his team abandoned him when they realized the mission wasn’t going to be successful.
The extreme isolation Nemo must endure becomes the focal point of the narrative, exploring how the burglar finds a way to survive being locked away for so long, without having anyone to talk to.
As a character-driven story, the whole weight of the plot falls onto Dafoe’s shoulders, giving the actor free rein with the performance he wants to deliver.
Greek filmmaker Vasilis Koutsoupis makes his fiction debut
Documentary-maker Vasilis Katsoupis makes his fiction feature debut, working on the script with British screenwriter Ben Hopkins.
See the trailer:
A film critic writing in the Guardian newspaper says the film is never dull and Dafoe has “a martyred intensity and anchorite emaciation.”
Perhaps the point is that super-rich art investment is already a sterile spiritual prison, Peter Bradshaw adds.
“Or perhaps Katsoupis and Hopkins are suggesting something else: that while humanity decays and dies like Dafoe’s hermit thief, art carries on, persisting in its callous way – and even offers a kind of escape. It is a strange, enclosed experience: Dafoe’s mastery of the screen keeps it meaningful.”
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