The Greek Films of 2011 Reflect the Day's Greece

While Greece struggles with psychic and economic woes, young film-makers are creating art out of adversity. Witness New York City’s Fifth Greek Film Festival 2011. The films were bitter, shocking, controversial, experimental, original, dynamic, awash in tragedy and black humor. The overly sentimental and vapid Gold Dust turned us off, but we thrilled to the Greek neo-noir of Tungsten and Knifer, as well as the risk-taking, sad kookiness of Attenberg. Says actor Vangelis Mourikis, who performed in all three films: “Film has come out of the studios and into the streets to deal with real life and the issues that are hot. Attenberg is a film of the streets because it’s part of the new reality.”

Greek Films of 2011

Attenberg
The controversial Attenberg, Greece’s entry for Best Foreign Film Academy Award nomination opened the festival. The quirky, anomalous film from talented director Athena Rachel Tsangaris refuses to offer comfort and joy. Re the title Attenberg: the nature documentaries of Sir David Attenborough inspire the characters who occasionally imitate animals.

In Attenberg, we encounter a tender, fatalistic father suffering from terminal cancer. Played by Vangelis Mourikis, the dad is the warm, beating heart of the film. “I’m boycotting the 20th century,” the father says. “I’m an old atheist, a toxic remnant of modernism. I’ll leave you in the arms of a new century without having taught you anything.” He also comments re the new Greece: “We built an industrial colony on top of sheep pens and thought we were creating a revolution.”

Ariane Labed portrays his daughter Marina, 23. She becomes her dying father’s friend and only support. It’s a coming-of-age film skewed to love and death. Sex forms the text and subtext of this film. With her father’s encouragement, the virginal Marina seeks a sexual encounter with a young man played by Yorgos Lanthimos, the director of last year’s Dogtooth.

At the end, the camera holds on a wasteland. You could be on the moon, but it’s Greece. Attenberg will be released in the USA by Strand in 2012.

Actor Mourikis, Attenberg’s father, in New York in conjunction with the festival, talked with Wall Street Greek. His distinctive, expressive face, with the huge black eyebrows draws you to the screen. It’s a Greek face, Zorbaish even. The actor’s in love with film, to the point of turning down theatre and TV roles. With forty films to his credit, Mourikis says: “The mythical world exists only in film, on the big screen. You can lose yourself in a film. It’s a different dimension, like drugs without drugs!”

Mourikis grew up in Athens where his father, a film buff, early on took him to the movies. “I would yell back at the screen.” He went to Australia to study film, and has also lived and worked in England and Italy.

Mourikis appeared in three films at the festival, including Tungsten, and says: “I die in most of my films at the end. I like it!”

Tungsten
Tungsten’s fabulous in so many ways, from its characters to its black and white cinematography. It’s a day in the life of disparate Athenians: a ticket tram inspector, played by Mourikis, a job recruiter, two young slackers – one half-heartedly looking for a job, the tram inspector’s wife, and the recruiter’s girlfriend. Tungsten takes its title from the metal with the highest boiling point, as it portrays characters burning with rage and frustration. Drenched in irony, the film moves to the beat of city life.

Trapped in no-exit lives, the characters make tragic wrong choices. One young slacker applies for a job. He’s interviewed by an impatient recruiter. Later we see the recruiter being browbeaten by his boss. Having a boring repetitive position can be almost as bad as not having a job! Director George Georgopoulos has a degree in sociology as well as film and it shows; the young director shows a keen insight into social structures and the dilemmas of Greece’s urban dwellers.

The director made the film for 5,000 Euros, or $6,000 with the agreement that all involved would share in the profits. Says Georgopoulos, “Tungsten’s an honest little film. I wrote, directed and edited the film.” As for Tungsten’s tragic conclusion, he admits: “I couldn’t have done it any other way. It wouldn’t be me!”

The film mirrors Athens today. But Georgopoulos began writing the script “during the Olympics, when Greece seemed like the center of the world.” Commenting on Athen’s young film-makers, Georgopoulos told Wall Street Greek: “We know each other and there’s a special energy. There’s a very collective spirit here.”

Knifer
In Knifer, an angry, possessive, paranoiac husband keeps two black dogs for protection. Suspecting his neighbors of threatening himself and his dogs, he hires his nephew Nikos to watch the dogs. Nikos moves in a torpor, a creature who lives to eat and sleep, his eye-lids at half-mast. It takes Aleko’s sexy wife, Gogo, to snap Nikos awake. While Aleko walks his dogs at night, his nephew and wife, the predatory Gogo, engage in raw, desperate sex. It’s sad, funny and evokes our compassion as we see the brutish Aleko traveling into the dark.

In black and white, Knifer takes us inside a bleak Athens, a nowhere place with empty people knocking against each other. After stabbing his uncle to death, Nikos calms himself sitting on the edge of the bed in a rented hotel space and eating a huge bag of chips.

Knifer is cynical and rampant with black humor. It won seven Hellenic Academy Film Awards, including for best director and cinematography. Director Yannis Economides says it reflects the “dog eat dog life.” Knifer has a web site that offers a fascinating interview with the director.

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Vassilakis - Cool Greek Jazz Artist

The Onassis Center in New York City exploded this year to the sweet saxophone and singing of Dimitri Vassilakis and his band. A jazz artist who is a scholar and teacher, but first and foremost a performer, Vassilakis managed to trump the roar of a huge crowd of gregarious Greeks indulging mezethes and wine (because the Onassis Foundation knows how to stage a party.) He brought the crowd down to a simmer to tune into his and his group’s renditions of music from the Beatles, Chet Baker, and Nina Simone.

Vassilakis - Cool Greek Jazz Artist

A tall, slender man with a shaved head, and a long, bony, and arresting face, Vassilakis vibrates with the music – his long hands twitching, his face moving in reaction to his other players. He alternates between playing the saxophone and singing in a lightly accented, smoky voice. His rendition of songs including Nature Boy and Time After Time comprise their own classics, and can be found on the recording, Across the Universe. On this CD, Vassilakis brings Greek passion to songs including Fool on the Hill and God Bless the Child.

Born in 1961, Vassilakis first earned a degree in Chemical Engineering at Athens University before surrendering to his great love, music, and ultimately, jazz. He moved to London in ’86 to study at the Royal Academy -- “I was very fortunate to have a scholarship from the Onassis Foundation” -- then did post-graduate studies in jazz for a Master’s Degree. “It was brand new, and the level was amazing at the Royal Academy.” Vassilakis went on to earn a Ph.D. in music.

He returned to Greece to teach, compose and perform. Says the multi-talented Vassilakis: “Playing is still my favorite thing – singing and playing the saxophone.”



According to the musician, jazz was “underdeveloped in Greece” when he first started performing there. “But as we started to produce and play – myself, fellow musicians and then my students – we developed a jazz scene in Greece that’s still evolving.” This summer, Vassilakis took his talent to the Greek islands, performing in venues on Mykonos and other popular spots. In the fall, he’ll go to Chicago where his brother, Pantelis, is the Chair of Acoustics at Columbia College. Vassilakis will give a concert, perform with a classical orchestra, and make a recording. He’ll then move on to New York and Boston. And if you haven’t seen or heard him, we suggest you watch your jazz calendars. Or catch the CD Across the Universe, dedicated to his wife, Elena, and son, Nestor.

Vassilakis has another intriguing gig. The super-luxurious Bentley car company commissioned him to make a CD To Bentley, and provides him with a car and driver for transportation to major festivals.

His web site: Dimitrios Vassilakis

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The Readers of Homer Thrills New York on its Epic Tour

Wall Street Greek Film & Theatre Columnist Penelope Karageorge got the opportunity to partake in the New York City reading of Homer's Odyssey late last fall. Penelope provides a review of the touring event for you here. The Readers of Homer is a unique touring spectacle, using audience participation to maximize the fun. It has been taken the world over, including to Chios, Greece, a legendary home of Homer, and certainly the ancestral home of Wall Street Greek founder Markos Kaminis.

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The Readers of Homer Thrills New York on its Epic Tour

Hundreds of New Yorkers turned on to the master Greek poet Homer, with an extraordinary marathon reading of The Odyssey at New York’s 92ND St. Y. Staged by the Readers of Homer and led by the remarkable actor/theatre director Yiannis Simonides, this reading nourished the soul and the stomach. A dinner preceded the reading with succulent roast lamb, as well as other delicious Greek foods – many dishes replicating those found in The Odyssey, and wine. During the marathon, participants could step out for honey and yogurt reinforcement, or a glass of wine.

But the thrills didn’t stop there! Just as mind-blowing, LyrAvlos played hand-made instruments replicating those from the Homeric era. Fantastic! Represented in New York by Panagiotis, Olga and Michalis Stefas, LyrAvlos is totally unique. And the Choreo Dance Group! One had to be there at 1 a.m. when the dancers, dressed as sirens, lit up the theatre as they sinuously moved up the aisles.

A total of two hundred readers participated, reading for between two and three minutes and remarkably, it proceeded as smoothly as moonlight on the Aegean. I was thrilled to be one of the readers, Number 59. Before the program, Simonides provided readers with complete instructions, via the charming Oxford U. graduate Stephania Xydia, PR woman for the program. I learned my exact minute, 23:26 and was given my lines. (Odysseus encountering the Cyclops in his cave)

Although I could have left the auditorium at any time previous to presenting, I found myself totally mesmerized. It was extraordinary to hear the great Homeric poetry read aloud. Although I’ve read and reread The Odyssey – kicking it off with a child’s version – and taught it at CUNY, The Readers of Homer brought vibrant life and color to Homer’s work.

The program began at 7 p.m., and ended at 8 a.m. with Four Meditations on War, a musical piece scored for bass-baritone and string quartet, conducted by composer Mark Latham. Created during some of the bleakest days of the war in Iraq, the composition reflected the complexity of the Homeric theme of war and all that arises from it: courage, cowardice, beauty, fulfillment, heroism and love.

Born in Constantinople and raised in Athens, Simonides is a Yale Drama School graduate and Emmy-award winning documentary producer. He has served as professor and chair of the NYU Tisch SOA Drama Department, and as executive director of COSMOS FM. He continues to tour the world with The Apology Project, a Socrates dramatization based on Plato, written and directed by the amazing Loukas Skipitaris.

Simonides and the Readers have brought Homer to Montevideo, Uruguay and Kos island in Greece. On April 30, 2011, the group staged a marathon reading of Homer’s Iliad at the Getty Villa in Malibu, California.

Readers of Homer can only be described as wonderful, an amazing group that we hope will flourish forever. We urge anybody who has the opportunity to attend and/or be a part of the Homeric readings to get involved. If you’re interested in participating or even making a contribution, you can go to the website: Thereadersofhomer.org



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Please see our disclosures at the Wall Street Greek website and author bio pages found there. This article and website in no way offers or represents financial or investment advice. Information is provided for entertainment purposes only.