Dionysos

A parable of the functioning of the world, reflected in the human consciousness, which is unable to accept the essential absurdity and injustice of the world other than by fictionalizing the unbearable reality: a fiction that paradoxically draws its images from the depths of its unconscious, from the depths where fairy tales, like those of Cocteau, become the embodiment of the principle that reality has the structure of fiction. While the fiction of the powerful of this world, kings and doctors, can pass for reality following Voltaire's saying that "It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets," because then medals, orders, and medical diplomas are handed out - while for the lonely individual, prison, a madhouse, or as here both at once await. The imprisoned mind then begins to create its own world for defense against the world, which can only reflect what it has experienced: insults and absurdity will catch up with us everywhere. The film may not reach the surreal coloring of Case for a Rookie Hangman, but not only does it remind them of the absurdity of their common fairy-tale rotten kingdom (and also the physical resemblance of the actors in the leading roles), but above all by this approach, when an unfree society must give birth to a parable of itself and live only through these parables in order to survive. The film The Matrix is ​​only a commercial derivative of this idea. The pace of the beginning will please mainly with the brilliant scenography and film architecture, which elevate the otherwise slightly sluggish pace of the film.

Although the Kafkaesque-existential central motif known from Blow-Up may evoke the appearance of the depth of human existence, drowned four meters from the beach, this film is rather a sharp Ionesco-like parallel, which with its light-footed absurdity much better captures the tragicomic nature of modern Europe, which has rid itself of the shackles of dictatorships to dissolve in the sea of ​​advertising, virtual, political-media simulacra. It is crucial that the film was made in 1974, the year when Greece rid itself of the right-wing military dictatorship - this film is not a pathetic lament over the remnants of the past, but from the first minute of the new era, it does not hesitate to attack the new social regime, where there are no clearly defined enemies, where the hostile "power" (whoever it may be!) no longer needs to steal the object tangible as in Blow-Up because a disc with recorded material of a person's disappearance is worthless in itself: the only important thing is its context, manipulation of public opinion, which shapes reality. It is fascinating that such an "artistic comedy" was created in 1974, which does not hesitate to attack the living without any sentiment. The state and the police as a department of the advertising company Helas Ltd. ("Greece Inc."), whose privatized share was received by every citizen in the coupon privatization...

The ship's siren reminiscent of one from a stereotype factory and the roar of a horn announcing the everyday private apocalypse evokes a paradoxical feeling of stagnant harbor water, with the ship stuck in place and yet inevitably drifting towards its end. The farewell balances on the border between life and death in the anxious timelessness of a black and white camera, when the viewer, as tense as the main character, awaits the gust of wind that would finally move the ship aground - in any direction. This perhaps slightly worn-out theme, but always relevant, is elevated by superb direction, especially by the beautiful cinematography.