Soultana Kalligas-why Are They Laughing

ATHENSPLUS • FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2009

CINEMA

Thessaloniki Film Festival zooms in on Werner Herzog International annual event in the northern port city celebrates its 50th birthday with noted guests, multicultural tributes and a host of parallel events Seen here in Antarctica shooting his 2007 documentary ‘Encounters at the End of the World,’ German director Werner Herzog is the chief subject of the 50th Thessaloniki International Film Festival.

BY JULIA PANAYOTOU

The Thessaloniki International Film Festival (TIFF), running this year from November 13 to 22, is celebrating its golden anniversary with Werner Herzog – the German director equally celebrated for his courageous and unique forays into both documentary and narrative filmmaking – as its chief subject and guest. Born in 1942, Herzog, with dozens of films, documentaries as well as operas under his belt, will be giving a master class on November 21, while a retrospective on his work of the past four decades will also comprise a main portion of the festival in the northern Greek city. Herzog will also be honored with the

COMMENTARY BY SOULTANA KALLIGAS

Why are they laughing? I recently went to my favorite neighborhood cinema to watch a Greek film dealing with racism in Greece. Did I expect to be rolling on the floor laughing for the next hour and 40 minutes? No. But everyone around me seemed to think otherwise. When the hero’s mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, calls her son “Sali” instead of “Stavros,” the audience laughed. When she and the Albanian worker, who claims to be her long-lost son, carry on a conversation in his language, leaving the Greek brother lost in translation, the audience laughed. When the hero’s loser friends wonder if he’s supposed to bellow racist soccer chants anymore, the audience laughed. And when he is put on the spot in an Albanian nightclub, where Mother feels at home and the mood is merry, the audience laughed. “Plato’s Academy,” currently playing in cinemas across the country, is listed as a comedy drama. Though the balance between the two is delicate, there are parts that truly warrant at least a chuckle. But mirroring the average Greek, the hero, Stavros,

Filipino fillip Other highlights to expect at the festival include a timely tribute to 21st-century independent cinema in the Philippines TIFF’s Golden Alexander Award and there will be a photography exhibition devoted to the filmmaker at the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation bookstore, featuring work by Swiss photographer Beat Presser, from November 13 to 21. The in-depth retrospective on Herzog spans not only his narrative filmmaking, from his first such feature, 1968’s “Signs of Life” (shot on Kos when he was a mere 24 years old), 1977’s “Stroszek,” 1976’s “Heart of Glass,” 1979’s “Woyzeck,” “Fitzcarraldo,” the 1982 adventure drama that won him the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival, to the more recent “Invincible” (2001) and “Rescue Dawn” (2006) as well as documentaries, 30 in all. These will include his projects from the 1960s, the more recent “Grizzly Man” and “Encounters at the End of the World” – the 2007 doc about researchers in Antarctica that earned him an Oscar nomination – not to mention work Herzog did for television, such as “The Transformation of the World into Music.” Other highlights to expect at the festival include: a timely tribute to 21st-century independent cinema in the Philippines, coming after Filipino di-

Winner of the 2009 Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, Peter Strickland’s crime drama ‘Katalin Varga’ is part of this year’s Balkan Survey.

FOG FILMS IN ATHENS Acting to “apply pressure on the Ministry of Culture to pass a film law that is both transparent and constructive,” the Greek filmmakers choosing not to participate in this year’s Thessaloniki Film Festival are instead showing their films in Athens until November 11 at the Filmmakers of Greece – FoG – Films week. Held at the Elly cinema (64 Academias), the week’s films present an opportunity to see many of the latest Greek productions, including “Dogtooth,” the dark, mannered drama about a hyper-protective father that won director Giorgos Lanthimos the 2009 Cannes Un Certain Regard Award. Tickets cost 5 euros, while 8 euros buys a pass for all the day’s films. To see the full screening schedule and find out more about why the Greek filmmakers are abstaining from the Thessaloniki Film Festival, visit www.fogfilms.org. rector Brillante Mendoza’s win this year at the Cannes Film Festival; the annual Balkan survey, this year with a tribute to Serbian director Goran Paskaljevic, who will be in attendance to conduct a master class and present his new film “Honeymoons,”

the first ever Serbian-Albanian co-production, and a tribute to Japanese Pink film or “Pinku eiga” a type of censored erotic film that emerged in the 1960s and frequently used allegory to explore leftist political themes. Parallel events abound, with

actress, singer and film director Jane Birkin in Thessaloniki to give a concert, while more master classes will be given by individuals such as screenwriter Tony Grisoni (“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”), Oscar-winning production designer Eugenio Caballero (“Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Limits of Control”), composer Alexandre Desplat and Jim Gianopulos, co-chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment. Lastly, the “Green Dialogues” section of the festival, begun last year, will feature open discussions, the screenings of films dealing with environmental themes, including “The Age of Stupid” and “The Cove,” as well as recycling, carpooling, public transportation and tree-planting campaigns for the duration of the festival.

For all the latest, visit www.filmfestival.gr.

was not created to be just a good guy or just a bad guy – he is a devoted son who is in love with his exwife and who vehemently proclaims his Greekness as he lazes outside his minimarket watching the immigrants in his neighborhood. These elements make for a film that is more a drama than a comedy. So why is the audience laughing? First of all, Antonis Kafetzopoulos, who won a best actor award at Locarno for his role as Stavros, though exceptional in dramatic roles (his career began in the early 80s with TV dramas “Astrofengia” and “To minore tis avgis”), has chosen funny roles over the last 20 years or so; as a result, reacting like Pavlov’s dogs, the Greek audience automatically laughs at the mere sight of his face. “Plato’s Academy” is not a comedy but just the fact that Kafetzopoulos is in it makes Greeks think it must be. And when Aristophanes’ definition of comedy as “an imitation of inferior people” (parasites, ironists and braggarts) is taken into account, the laughter heard in the cinema starts making even more sense. Aristophanes’ concept has become rooted in the way Greeks make movies, plays and TV series and is manifested by the omnipresent smart aleck who “learns his lesson” at the end of the story. The audience of “Plato’s Academy” expects this formula – and gets it, to a certain extent – but they are unable to move beyond that, missing the dramatic nuances excellently portrayed by Kafetzopoulos. Finally, raising the touchy subject of racist behavior in Greece in a film that has comedic elements means that nervous laughter cannot be avoided. Greeks often react this way when faced with uncomfortable situations – empathy is regarded as a weakness, yet guilt won’t let them get away with doing nothing, so they laugh. Complicated and deep-rooted reasons lie behind such out-of-place reactions at the movies but this doesn’t make them any less annoying. So either come prepared to hear the audience laughing in all the wrong places or rent out the theater for a private viewing.

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