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Greek cinema
is not just Theo Angelopoulos, a genuine auteur whose Eternity and a Day
was awarded the Palme d'Or at the 1998 Cannes festival. Nor, for the younger
crowd, is it simply Dimos Avdeliodis, whose The Spring Gathering, a
film of poetic landscape beauty, was awarded a trio of prizes (Don Quixote,
CICAE, Caligari) at the 2000 Berlinale. There's also Giorgos Zafiris, whose
Ephemeral Town, an essay on time and memory, received an armful of
prizes awarded by the Greek Ministry of Culture Best First Film, Best
Cinematography, Best Editing, and Third Prize for Feature Film before
receiving an invitation to Critics' Week.
As noted in the press
book supplied by the Greek Film Centre, "Ephemeral Town is an allegory
on the individual and the collective, on the conflict between mobility and
immobility, on identity and disparity, and finally on the consolation derived
in recognising and identifying with the ancient blood ties that exist between
all men."
If that sounds a little too profound,
try the director's own viewpoint. "Ephemeral Town is a look at those
who live in foreign lands," he
says, "the foreign land of the hero, who travels to limbo seeking some immobile
parts of the world, and the foreign lands of the refugees, who were forced
to leave their homelands in search of a better fate." Zafiris also confirms
that the narrative line of the film is structured along three parts: "a-topia"
meaning "no place"; "ou-topia" meaning utopia; and "topos"
meaning "place".
The story follows Andreas (Giorgos
Dialegmenos) travelling to his dead mother's home on a Greek island now
flooded by "foreigners", mostly tourists, dropouts, and retirees. The
character of the landscape has also been changed, so much that Andreas
can no longer find his home. Immersing himself in the myth of the island,
he rebuilds an "ephemeral town" to match his memories with a little
help from the foreigners.
Ron Holloway
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