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sedz
Interests include photography, classic Greek and German philosophy.
Reviews
Evdokia (1971)
The Zeibakiko of Eudokia - Or The "dance" of Eudokia.
I consider this movie an interesting experimentation related to love, produced during the years of military coup in Greece.
Images provided by Damianos are excellent. However, you may be deeply disappointed with the actors' performances.
Yet such kind of movies are a unique representation of the Greek symbolic culture.
For instance Damianos for several minutes shows an excursion in the mountain, with characters engaged in a dangerous behavior. A speeding motorbike, a woman in danger to fall from a cliff. But nevertheless the characters survive. Danger is not meant to be the main element, it is meant to be an indication of the false belief of power related to love (my interpretation). Then you may want to extend such phrase to the entire human condition.
The plot is about 2 people, behaving in contradiction to society's norms. One of them, recruited by the army, - a figure with bad connotations during the years of coup in Greece - the other, a prostitute. Again, this movie is not interested in depicting the elite class, but two common people stripped of, of any ideology, any conscious intention, guided primarily by their desires and feelings. Such behavior was bound to be destructive.
In summary, an excellent movie which is not meant to be accepted passively, but to be interpreted. Like similar movies of the period, is meant to unravel a semantic puzzle for you to solve.
To prosopo tis Medousas (1967)
To prosopo tis Medusa's or The face of Medusa. Previously known as VORTEX
Everything initiates from Greek Tragedy in this plot. However, does "Catharsis" exists?
In a Greek remote location, the protagonists enter in a self destructive behavior initiated by a young female. She is the medusa. A stranger looks at her and decides to stay with the group. Previously the brother of her boyfriend, who had sex with her, ended up dead. The movie ends with a knife, and an intent to kill.
Death for love, love and death, or deadly love? The moral? It was difficult for me to find a moral on the film. It seems that either Koundouros does not want to adhere to the Platonic purpose of art, or, I was not capable of understanding the moral.
To my belief Koundouros tries to take a shot, to depict a vivid aspect of life. I wonder however why he constantly refuses to show the beauty of the Greek scenery. Why scenes focus on people like profiles that would be taken from amateur photographers.
On the contrary he shows several scenes of the filming crew (actors themselves) while this has the effect of detaching the viewer from the "reality" of the movie.
A lot could be said about this film. It is indeed difficult to understand, it takes patience and insight, and certainly it would be difficult for someone not initiated in Greek culture to appreciate the philosophical connotations of the plot or even specific scenes.
Koundouros did an amazing job making the scene speak of itself, however I also believe he said that this film needs "the help of the viewer". He was right.