Showing @ Filmhouse, Edinburgh until Thu 8 Sep
It’s been a tumultuous week for Greece; a still contracting economy, unemployment levelling at record highs and even talk of the country’s expulsion from the EU (since rejected however). So writer/director Athina Rachel Tsangari’s ghostly tale of loss and national identity produces a timely investigation of a failing nation.
Marina (Ariane Labed), a Greek taxi driver whose personal life is riddled with sexual inexperience and social ineptitude is awakened by her promiscuous best friend Bella (Evangelia Randou). Adjusting to life at the bedside of her terminally ill father, a bleakly surreal irony explores Marina’s strength and identity through her replicating of animals that she sees on David Attenborough’s nature programmes.
A flat urban landscape epitomises the turbulence and insolvency of Greece’s privation. Sea-air salt tints the film with a greyish rustiness, reminiscent of Porumboiu’s Poliţist, Adjectiv or Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. This aesthetic, a kind of Eurorealism which features in so many low-budget films, manages to compliment the true nature of Tsangari’s inquiry: uncovering identity in any form. From the eroticism of Marina’s stimulation to the animalism of her gorilla impressions, the film questions where individuality can be hidden, whether it can be learnt or if it is assigned by society. While amusing scenes of Marina and Bella squawking like pelicans are at times too repetitive and predictable, the jerky narrative creates an edgy storyline which could fall into tragedy at any moment. But of course, everything about this story is tragic; from the inadequacies of Marina’s personality to the barren society which fails to accommodate it, Tsangari’s fiercely relevant film comments whole heartedly on the breakdown of economic regulation, and the disastrous consequences it can generate.