Poor Things: surrealism and dark satire throughan immersive exploration of color and symbolism

Abstract

In this article, we will approach the poetic-aesthetic proposal embodied by director Yorgos Lanthimos in his most recent feature film, Poor Things (2024). It could be suggested that, in this film, Lanthimos configures surrealist and satirical aesthetics that are achieved through the combination of certain procedures and cinematographic resources, mainly the use of the chromatic palette and the evocation of surrealist atmospheres. For the analysis, we concentrated on certain relevant theoretical categories in the field of cinema linked to theories on the use of color and its meaning in the cinematographic narrative.