By Dennis Harvey, 48hills.
Greece may be the sun-kissed cradle of Western culture and a perennial magnet for tourism, but in recent decades it has seldom had a high profile in the film world. During the “golden age” of the 1950s and ‘60s things were somewhat different, as talents like stars Melina Mercouri and Irene Papas, plus directors Michael Cacoyannis and Costa-Gavras, achieved major international recognition. After that, however, a variety of factors contributed to a shrinking of exported features, the most prominent exceptions being later films by late slow-cinema master Theo Angelopoulos and the idiosyncratic, absurdism-inclined Yorgo Lanthimos (though his projects are mostly shot abroad in English these days).
But just because we don’t see many Greek movies at the multiplex doesn’t mean there aren’t interesting ones being made, and the San Francisco Greek Film Festival provides annual proof of that. The current edition is its 18th, taking place Fri/16 through Sun/25 as a free online-only event (though donations are welcome), apart from a single in-person event Sun/18 at San Mateo’s Par 3 drive-in. On that evening, at $40 per carload, you’ll be able to see 2019’s Fantasia, a tuneful dramatic ode to the 1990’s urban folk-music revival scene that is definitely not related to the Disney ‘toon of the same name.
There are no designated official opening or closing night films—all the remaining eleven features and fifteen shorts are available for streaming throughout the festival’s course. Among the more acclaimed full-length titles is Yannis Economides’ Ballad for a Pierced Heart, a long, leisurely yet thoroughly potty-mouthed black comedy-cum-noir in which a cheating wife and stolen loot trigger plans for lethal vengeance on all sides. It takes nearly two hours for the bodies to start piling up, but when they do, they pile high. With nearly every interaction an argument, and even the fugitive lovers frequently at each others’ throats, this deadpan tale of provincial misanthropy is not the kind of enterprise that will have you rushing to book that next Greek vacation.
Likewise offering a rather dark view of humanity, although with considerably less humor, is Syllas Tzoumerkas’ The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea. Scapegoated for the botched investigation of an alleged anarcho-terrorist group, a veteran police detective is forced to relocate with her resentful son to a small town. There, she becomes a particularly foul-tempered (and typically hung-over) police chief whose path crosses that of a luckless woman employed in the local eel-processing factory (uh…yum?) after the latter’s dominating lounge-singer brother turns up dead. This dyspeptic drama is equal parts murder mystery and grim portrait of dead-end lives lashing out.
There’s not much more levity in Iranian director’s European co-production Pari, in which a couple arrive in Athens to visit their son, whom they’d sent to study at university here two years earlier. Not only does he fail to meet them at the airport, it turns out he’s been missing for months—and never even really started his purported studies. Well-meaning fellow Iranians expats they meet assume the boy “lost his way” amongst the “so-called freedoms” of this non-Islamic society. But as the search for him drags fruitlessly on, until Pari’s rigid, controlling husband loses interest, this passive wife and mother begins to become someone else—just as her only child presumably has. It’s an atmospheric tale with a commanding lead performance by Melika Foroutan. Though again, this particular view of Athens (in particular its seamy underside) is not one you’ll find in the guidebooks.
By no means is everything in 2021’s SF Greek Fest so somber. There are also three full-length comedies (Defunct, Tailor, Not To Be Unpleasant But We Need A Serious Talk), And documentaries encompass a wide range of subjects, including monastery portrait Athos, The World’s Highest Peak, grape-based-industry overview In The Wine Dark Sea, music showcase My Rembetika Blues and pogrom flashback The Unlost Homeland. All program and ticketing info is available at sfgff2021.eventive.org.