Fonissa

Lets start with the basics. The same name novel is outstanding!!

A great thriller novel with ethographic (represents the ethic and customs of a society) elements of a poor agricultural society.

The novel explores the psyche of an old woman (Hadoula), who lived on the margins of society and suffered a lot from poverty and other people mostly from her mother. The old woman having existential thoughts, starts to "Psilonei o nous tis" that means to embrace madness. These thoughts and her insane believings lead her to become a serial killer of young girls.

On the other hand the movie has nothing to do with this. On the movie the society not only seems to know about Hadoula killing girls, but also invite her sometimes to kill their girls. There is no suspence, no existential dilemmas, only a sick corrupted society where all the problems comes from the evil slothful Men. And of course the film doesnt explore the psyche of a troubled woman who turns into serial killer, which is amazing on the book, reaching Dostoyevskys explorations of troubled people!!!

In few words the film has a dull and misleading atmosphere with no suspence and very slow plot. Without any deeper meanings and dilemmas.

What misery a bad Papadiamantis story in its bad film adaptation. The case is moving slowly. Very late, you could barely watch it if you have sleep problems. The protagonist saves the situation a little, but in the midst of a bad mess, she too gets carried away. What a bad movie. How Bad interpretations. A mess of an hour and a half that you just want to end before you get a headache. Don't make the mistake of seeing her. Don't press cinema and if you happen to be on TV just change the channel. An attempt by the director to give a dramatic tone to the film is very dark in every scene. The countless overcast shots and the constant black clothing of the actors. A bad music and overall a golden mediocrity.

A pretentious boring film hyped by the local media as an artistic masterpiece!!! All we have instead are schematic characters, bad acting from all, even from the leading actress, lack of directing guidance to the actors, inferior sound design as it was often the case voices to sound dettached from the image context, questionable soundrack foreign to the spirit of the story and more keen to the spirit of Herzog's Nosferatu!!!

Angelopoulos 50 years earlier with his "Reconstitution" has so much more poignantly described and blended his story into its socially anthropological and geographhical context.

Modern Greek Cinema has so many better samples to offer in world viewers.

I went to watch this movie fearing that because of its female directorship, it would focus more on the "patriarchy" issue and not on the rest of the stuff. Thankfully, I was completely wrong. The movie perfectly captures the mental and psychological world of the protagonist as well as the era (1902, Skiathos Island). As far as the acting goes, it was not something special but is surely stands out from most Greek movies. Papadiamantis wrote a masterpiece and Eve Nathena transfered that masterpiece into the big screen in a way well beyond what we have to get used to in Greece. In other words, go and see it!

Nai men alla...

The story needed more work; as Georgousopoulos once told me when we were having coffee in Kolonaki, if a creator uses Papadiamantis' work they should respect the main structure, and then they may add whatever the heck they wish to add; if they don't, the plot starts to have problems.

I went to watch the movie hoping it would be a masterpiece. I think they did a good job but something was missing...

On the other hand I loved the level of production; them cloths; the scenery; the beautiful village; the actresses; Karampeti, in particular.

Maybe next time a creator makes a movie out of Fonissa they try to use Zoulias' work for "the women of Papadianantis".