The Man with the Carnation (1980)

Foivos Gikopoulos: Nikos Belogiannis

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Quotes 

• Nikos Belogiannis : Do you like Papadiamantis? He's the most sensitive Greek writer. In prison, I started writing an essay about the roots of Modern Greek literature and I had studied Papadiamantis. Those, trying to translate him in Modern Greek, don't know a thing.

• Nikos Belogiannis : I am leaving, my son, without getting to know you. They are in hurry, you see. I have nothing to leave you except these lines of a poet that were always my creed: "Be willing to die if necessary so that others may live. People whose faces you have never seen. And be willing to die even when there is nothing more beautiful than life."

• Detective : With a "no" you go to your death. You are only thirty-six years old. Think of your own interests.

  Nikos Belogiannis : That is the logic of your world, not mine.

• Nikos Belogiannis : What evidence is there that this was espionage and that I was its head?

  Detective : In Vavoudis' hiding place we found the code.

  Nikos Belogiannis : Was Vavoudis an experienced communist?

  Detective : Of course he was.

  Nikos Belogiannis : You said that he burned some documents.

  Detective : He was very calm and he did burn lots of documents.

  Nikos Belogiannis : Why then this experienced and calm individual would burn so many papers and fail to burn the code, which was the key to all the other documents? Pay more attention to details when fabricating a plot.

• Nikos Belogiannis : [voiceover]  Think of the world we have dreamed of, free of hunger, exploitation and oppression. Free of war. Think too that we have helped to build it. Then you will not be afraid to bring our child in the world.

• Nikos Belogiannis : Only one wish, father. That we would be the last.

• Nikos Belogiannis : When the Germans invaded our land, His Majesty the King and his government abandoned the country and its people to their fate. They left hundreds of political prisoners behind bars. I was one of those prisoners. We escaped and those of us who survived, joined the resistance. We founded the National Liberation Front, the EAM. At the beginning of the German occupation one seventh of the population died of hunger. It was an actual genocide. The nation was in great peril. At that moment, the EAM came to revive a dying nation. To fight for life and freedom. And the communists were the heart and soul of the EAM. The Communist Party needs no citations for patriotism. It has won them with blood as well as with arms.

  Head of the Court Martial : Primarily with arms.

  Nikos Belogiannis : Primarily with blood. Remember the two hundred executed at Kaisariani, the four hundred in Kokkinia, the one hundred ten in Kournovo, Ilektra's suffering, and the heroic Stathopoulou, who threw herself in the path of German tanks. That is how we love our country, with sacrifice and blood. What agent serving foreign interests would ever give his life so selflessly? Our sacrifice is comparable only to those of the early Christians. But the Christians hoped for the Kingdom of Heaven. The Communists offer their sacrifices for a future they will not live to enjoy. What agent serving foreign interests would ever do so? You keep repeating that we are spies and traitors. No, we are Greeks, who go without sleep and rest, striving for the dawn of a better tomorrow, for the creation of a new era more compatible with our dreams, more fit for human beings to live in...

• Nikos Belogiannis : [voiceover]  Their aim is to break us down. To drive us out of our minds. We must resist. Fill your cell with all the beauties of this world. Think about the sea, the moon, children playing in the park.

  Elli Ioannidou : [voiceover]  Comrade, I get strenght from your strenght and from the worthy cause we are fighting for. I must be strong. I am pregnant. And I intend to bring this child into the world. I will not let them kill me before my child is born.