Still, flashy car chases and huge flaming explosions don’t typically mesh well with dialogue-heavy slow cinema; the two are pretty much separate entities. Action isn’t an arena that Yorgos Lanthimos is thus familiar with as he much prefers to disorientate audiences with deadpan comedy, bizarre set design, and the kinds of characters that only someone with a slightly disturbed mind could relate to. 

The Greek director made waves with his controversial movie Dogtooth back in 2009, a bold journey into themes that you just don’t get in the mainstream, such as incest and rather explicit sex. While Lanthimos’ cinematic journey has taken him to Hollywood, he has still maintained his idiosyncratic style with movies like The Favourite and Poor Things, refusing to sell out despite the pressures of an industry hell-bent on appeasing as many audiences as possible.

Action cinema certainly tries to appease, oftentimes with a pretty straightforward good-versus-bad narrative that sticks to the status quo, and fast-paced sequences that suit those with the shortest of attention spans. That’s not to say action cinema is of lower intelligence; there are many great ones out there, but at the end of the day, your average action movie is going to favour ostentatious and dramatic sequences rather than encouraging philosophical debate, and that’s OK because that’s the point of having different genres.

While it’s not a genre that Lanthimos typically gravitates towards, being a filmmaker, he can recognise a good action movie when he sees one, and for him, there’s one that he thinks is “perfect”. Talking to The Rumpus, Lanthimos said, “It’s not a lot to ask for your mind to work, at least with some films. There are entertaining films that do it for you, and you’re having a good time, and it’s fine… When they’re good, I really enjoy them. Like, I enjoyed The Bourne Ultimatum… It’s a masterpiece of this type of cinema. It’s perfect: pure action, no bullshit dialogue. It’s action to the highest degree of beauty and perfection. I think he [Paul Greengrass] is a very good director.” 

The Bourne Ultimatum is the third instalment in the Jason Bourne franchise that came out in 2007 and saw Matt Damon pick up the mantle once more as the titular amnesiac action hero piecing together what he knows with why. Winning three Academy Awards, the film certainly exemplifies a solid action movie worth the accolades, matching its high-octane scenes with meaningful meditations on a corrupted government and a world increasingly dominated by surveillance.

There’s no excess fluff in The Bourne Ultimatum, and with a solid performance from Damon, it’s not surprising that Lanthimos thinks highly of the movie, even if it seems like the last thing you’d catch the Poor Things director sitting down to watch.

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