Even without the “Welcome to Marathon” flyer that greets Katerina ( Angeliki Papoulia ) and Yannis (Vangelis Mourikis) upon their arrival in “ Arcadia ,” it’s clear that they’ve entered one of Greece’s stranger corners: a resort town where they will look into the untimely death of a loved one. An unnerving and curious meditation on grief, Yorgos Zois ’ second feature will satiate those looking for deeper cuts from the Greek Weird Wave than Yorgos Lanthimos and Christos Nikou, but will hold limited appeal for those who generally look to find comfort at the movies; Zois offers more of the opposite. Still, there’s something compelling at the core of “Arcadia,” which takes literally the idea of Marathon becoming a ghost town in its off-season.
In a place where tourists come and go, but the residents who cater to their whims can feel stuck in purgatory, Katerina and Yannis aren’t in for a vacation when they’re obliged to stick around for an autopsy after a tragic car crash to identify a body that’s suggested to be their daughter. Rather than stay at a hotel, the couple, at Yannis’ insistence, decide to take over the suddenly vacant rental home that the deceased was booked at, perhaps giving them some answers about what happened leading up to a fatal car crash. Instead, it only opens up more questions, leading Yannis to dip into the pills he can prescribe for himself as a doctor as Katerina accepts the invitation of a local teen Nikos (Asterios Rimagmo.