Strella

I had the honour to see that movie at it's world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival. This surprising story of a man coming out of jail and falling in love with a transsexual is excellently written and surprisingly well played. Nearly all the actors are amateurs, but who needs trained actor with a cast like that: Especially Mina Orfanou in the role of 'Strella' is a revelation. Panos Koutras finds a way to tell a complicated story and to keep the audience interested in the main characters without following paths of Pedro Almodovar, though both have the wicked humor in common and both obviously love a good melodramatic story line every now and then. And he knows how to end a story, something that isn't often seen in queer movies nowadays. I sincerely hope 'Strella' will find a broader audience as it is clever and entertaining.

I'm not conservative, I'm not a puritan, I'm tolerant and liberal, but I do have some limits and this film surpassed them.

I want to emphasize I do not mean the transsexual theme, which is absolutely fine, after all I did enjoy The Crying Game. I mean the twist in the plot, which I do not want to reveal for those who haven't seen the movie but it did make a very bad impression to me. This was WAY too much and spoiled my movie experience. This was bordering sickness. I can't believe such a sick twist was airbrushed in all the reviews I happened to read about this movie. And for what is worth, I also enjoyed Oldboy.

Anyway, art is art, but be prepared. For me only redeeming aspects if you manage to take the scenario out of the picture is Mina Orfanou's performance and the competent direction.

Movies like this always confirm that the long hunt for good foreign cinema is always worth it in the end. It always helps to enter the world of film with an open-mind in order to truly appreciate what you're being shown.

Don't limit yourself to a certain type of movie trope or genre, experience the more abstract and see the beauty (if you can) in the flexibility of cinema.

Strella was one of the two Greek films people would propose me to see this winter (the other being "Kynodontas"). Unfortunately I missed the second, but I had the opportunity to see this one and I have to say that, unlike my rather low expectations, it finally came out to be a very interesting film, actually more than other very highly discussed and budgeted Greek films. The good things about it?.. I guess it's because you never get bored through the film and there is always something in the plot to make it interesting. Then, it's the fact that it's very human. No one is characterized by what he / she does or who he / she is. A prison convict is just a person and so is a transsexual. I am happy with the fact that the film emphasizes on feelings and not on stereotypes. This makes it present a difficult subject in an easy way for the viewer,without being melodramatic or superficial either. My highlights are the squirrel scenes (fantastic idea!) plus the performance of Mina Orphanou - she is unbelievably good let alone for a non trained actor! So, I would highly suggest people to see this even if they have hesitations...

This is the first Greek film I've had the privilege of watching. It is also the best film I've watched this year.

For me the film is about families, and how we cope when we find ourselves outside of traditional structures (of course there probably never was such a thing as a traditional family). Although many of the films characters are LGBT I would not describe this as being an LGBT film. The characters may be gay or trans, but it is simply a facet of them, mentioned in passing, and not their core identity.

There is a big twist in the middle, and my initial reaction on seeing it was that it really spoilt the film. However, 10 minutes later to my surprise there was another twist which pulled everything back perfectly. Not many screenwriters can manage to pull off something as complex as that.

Mina Orfanu is wonderfully cast as Strella. This is not an easy part to play and she carries it off with great alacrity, despite not being a professional actress.

It is a great achievement that, despite the sometimes extremely dark subject matter I left this film with a big grin. If only Hollywood would make films like this!