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| Images courtesy of Radiance Films |
Greek film director Nikos Koundouros studied painting and
sculpture in the Athens School of Fine Arts before becoming a former member of
the Greek People’s Liberation Army during the period of the left-wing Greek
resistance movement until February 1945.
For doing so was imprisoned on the Makronissos island. Shortly thereafter around 1953 however he
picked up work as a cinematographer and around 1954 began a career in film
directing with the crime drama The Magic City which dove into the
problems of debts and smuggling trying to survive the slum life. Only two years thereafter, Koundouros
unveiled the tragically overlooked and initially poorly received The Ogre of
Athens in 1956, a film which decades later is now regarded as one of the
foundational examples of contemporary Greek cinema. Going on to win the Thessaloniki Film
Festival Award for Best Film and booked on the 17th Venice Film Festival,
in 2006 it was named one of the 10 best Greek films of all time by the
Pan-Hellenic Union of Cinema Critics.
Seen today, it’s a brilliant and powerful satirical dark dramedy with a
phantasmagorical score by Manos Hadjidakis and luminous cinematography by
Costas Theodorides and through Radiance Films is making its worldwide blu-ray
disc premiere.
Meek nebbish bank clerk Thomas (Dinos Iliopoulos) is a
boring lanky loner who would rather lounge around at home alone than spend New
Year’s Eve out and about. However when
he is misidentified as the notorious criminal mastermind The Ogre of Athens,
a kind of Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler type whose mercurial presence and nebulous
control over Athens grips the populace with fear, he finds himself evading a
manhunt from authorities at every turn.
Eventually his fugitive status lands him in the basement of a cabaret as
a front for an underworld gang commandeered by boorish crime boss Fatman
(Giannis Argyris) who dominates over his dancer girlfriend Carmen (Maria
Lekaki). But after showing Carmen an act
of kindness and inadvertently toppling the Fatman who believes him to be The
Ogre of Athens, people start respecting and looking up to Thomas who begins
to enjoy his unlikely newfound notoriety.
However, Thomas can only keep up the ruse for so long before the law and
the truth of his identity catch up with him.
Picturesque and scenic for its snapshot of then-modern Athens,
Greece, beset by physical comedy by Dinos Iliopoulos who makes the meek banker
Thomas initially into a skinny waif who gradually begins rising to the occasion
of his new role as The Ogre of Athens, Koundouros’ film is one of the
true grassroots masterworks of Greek cinema.
From its opening title card of a large banner being pasted over a wall
of film posters, The Ogre of Athens announces itself as a tragicomic
melodrama filled with neorealist casting and cinematography, capturing the
streets of Athens as scrappy and treaded upon.
Iconography and culture is omnipresent including a telling sequence near
the end where the cabaret club builds up to a somber traditional Greek
dance. Much of the energy of the film
comes from the performances, namely the romantic longing and interplay between
Dinos Iliopoulos and Maria Lekaki who exudes sexiness and a hint of carnality
lurking beneath her fierce eyes and carefully mannered dancing. Also strong is Giannis Argyris who is all
brawn and machismo but still finds himself in awe when he thinks he’s looking
at Athens’ very own criminal mastermind and he conjures up some unexpected
emotional power in his performance.
Making its disc premiere in the United States and United
Kingdom through Radiance Films in a composite print with occasional print
damage and cracks though largely intact, The Ogre of Athens comes housed
with a limited-edition booklet, the time-honored OBI spine and an introduction
before the film by Jonathan Franzen.
There’s also an interview with Greek Film expert Dimitris Papanikolaou regarding
the Golden Age of Greek Cinema and a newly conducted interview with Christina
Newland. A film long overdue for
rediscovery by world cinema fans, Greek cinephiles and collectors in general, The
Ogre of Athens is a taut and affecting little masterpiece whose powers for
comedy, the thriller film, the sardonic social satire and finally an emotional
powerhouse of heavy lifting. Radiance
Films once again have picked up and delivered another home run, a visually and
aurally arresting experience that evokes a mood and creates an aura not wholly
unlike the one conjured up by Henri-Georges Clouzot with Le Corbeau in
terms of mistaken identity and a whole town gripped by fear.
--Andrew Kotwicki
