Reviews

One of the most political films of the new Greek cinematography. The heroes of the film `Loufa kai parallaghi' (1984) (privates conscripted in the Greek army during the dictatorship) are gathered after twenty years to prevent -either due to police coercion or to their own motives (sympathy, economic/political interests, just to have a laugh)- their ex-companion from carrying out his threat and blowing up the central building of the national communications organisation if he does not receive TV broadcasting time to address a revolutionary protest text against the public machine. The film constitutes a rather complete and to the point comment on the mechanisms of government indifference, covering-up and finally engulfing foreign elements; a bitter, well-structured satire, sarcastic and above all astonishingly modern due to its internationalist character. The film is far from limiting itself to a social critique based on the heroes of the previous film. It is an autonomous creation having a clear reason of existence, at least in respect to its thematic and structure. The aesthetics of the film is not something extraordinary (I should probably make an appeal to my poor knowledge on relative issues) but this does not impair the general impression that the film, as a narrative, leaves. Regarding the non-Greek viewers, it should be noted that all the facts that are necessary to comprehend the film (the film incorporates comedy elements, as well) and are relevant to the Greek reality of the 1980s (and even 1990s) are given by the film itself.

An allegoric film on the bourgeois. A father and his three sons retire to a country-side mansion after inheriting the mansion itself and an amount of money that will enable them to live there without working and be taken care of by a maid. Gradually, sleeping occupies all of their day; even the relaxing walks in the nature, conversation and singing at the dinner table are regarded as unnecessary deviations from their sleeping. There is no kind of guilt. They feel no need for creating, thinking, feeling, sex or food. The few external persons are excluded by their overwhelming desire to sleep: one of the sons chooses to leave his local girlfriend and an artist seeking support by the bourgeois environment is not welcomed. The youngest son compromises his will to leave and study at the university, and even the second time he tries to break the bondage, he is physically unable to walk away. Time is, of course, absent. A part of the first symphony by Malher enhances the image of the lying bodies.