Another View 2012 / L / Greece 2012
A 40-year-old man has a roof over his head, albeit the roof of a car he refuses to leave. He uses his vehicle to transport honey and to entertain guests. And that’s just the beginning! An entry in this year’s Sundance competition, the movie is part of the current wave of potent and twisted Greek allegories.
A 40-year-old man lives separated from his family, but he meets them in a wide variety of parking lots. That’s because this 40-year-old man lives in his car. It earns him a living as a honey deliveryman, one who is frequently delayed, which causes him nightmares similar to those brought on by the death of a friend who was shot while wearing a bear costume. Although precisely laid out, the movie deliberately leads the viewer into chaos. It doesn’t seek a clear decoding of metaphor, and it all seems like an error message hovering on a computer screen. You know that something’s wrong, it’s annoying, but what the hell is it? Similar to other current Greek film allegories, however, the absurd situations evoke an authentic tension, undisturbed even by the fact that some of the characters speak, under seemingly normal circumstances, as if they were reading an announcement over the radio. And similar to the films of Belgian movie punks Gustav Kervern and Benoît Delépine, the protagonists, who do bizarre things with their stony faces, also provoke a few raised eyebrows among the audience.
87 min / Color, 35 mm
Director Babis Makridis
/ Screenplay Efthimis Filippou, Babis Makridis
/ Dir. of Photography Thimios Bakatakis
/ Music Coti K
/ Editor Yannis Chalkiadakis
/ Producer Amanda Livanou, Babis Makridis
/ Production Beben Films
/ Cast Aris Servetalis, Makis Papadimitriou, Eleftherios Matthaios
/ Contact Beben Films, Greek Film Centre
Babis Makridis (b. 1970, Greece) graduated in direction from Lykourgos Stavrakos Film and Television School in Athens, and then started making television commercials. At the Athens short film festival, The Last Fakir (O teleftaios fakiris, 2005) won him the award for best rising filmmaker. His film L, which competed at both Sundance and Rotterdam, is his feature debut. Makridis professes his admiration for Robert Bresson and Samuel Beckett.
Beben Films
68, Lysimachias str, 117 44, Athens
Greece
Phone: +30 211 0126909
E-mail: [email protected]
Greek Film Centre
7 Dionissiou Areopagitou, 117 42, Athens
Greece
Phone: +30 210 367 850 0
Fax: +30 210 3648269
E-mail: [email protected]
Amanda Livanou
Film Institution Rep., Producer
Babis Makridis
Film Director
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