Psyhraimia

George, Hloi, Billis, Stavrakomanios and Papadakis are driving towards the Venizelos airport, at the same time, without knowing that their stories are part of one, bigger and involving their parents' story. Corruption, politics, media, drugs, prison system, health system, social standards of Modern Greek life-style in the 21st century exposed in a powerful way: this is not part of the night-life world, this is part of the Greek everyday reality. And the next generation is about to take some decisions.

Perakis shows for one more time how crucial and shameful social issues can be approached with wit and in a productively provocative way. What seemed to be "just another" modern-Greek comedy (first 10 minutes of the movie) is turning into a hopeful process.

Modern Greek society apart from struggling with an amalgam of historic and modern geopolitical forces and continuous changes seems to be unable to finalize its struggle for an identity for many decades now. Lacking the (sometimes externally imposed) heroism of the generations of the first half of the 20th century, the generations leading the country into the end of the 20th century seemed to have identified with a "balkanised" trio of values: money, media-fame and easy pleasure.

This is not news and "Psychraimia" is not the only movie addressing that. The news about this movie is the possibility that the emerging generations have somehow secure some remaining and healthy grounds to build a different and alternative future to the one that the previous generation has left. And, according to this movie, this is not possible only to the minority of the society that has been carrying the burden of the on-going corruption for the past decades in a peaceful but painful way either via the spiritual or cultural heritage; this becomes possible in the very heart of the rotting modern Greek leading society group.

I have been waiting for this movie to come out ever since I heard about it, me being a major Nikos Perakis fan. After watching it over and over again, since I actually miss the journey it takes me on, I can safely say that as far as I'm concerned, this movie has it all: Colorful and deep, multidimensional characters, a logical development (which is no little feat in modern Greek movies I'm sorry to say), a climaxing ending, and dare I say, catharsis?

The storyline is simple: we are invited into the lives of a strong cast of different youngsters for a couple of days in modern day Greece, while they are going through some intense times, all socially connected in some way and all sharing an important fact: they all come from corrupt and criminal parents, some already incarcerated and some on their way to prison while the story develops. Perakis takes his time presenting us his characters, I feel we actually get to know them pretty well and even like them, or at least some aspects of them, and we get to see a lot of aspects :) It takes a while for all the puzzle pieces to start falling into place, but once they do, at about halfway through the movie when the characters start interacting with each other while rushing to their fated destinations, it is truly a social analyst viewer's pleasure. All that, laced with a sense of humor, not entirely white, atmospheric soundtrack, add some great acting, great directing and you have a wonderful movie.

What is it ultimately about? It is about relationships, it is about the sins of the fathers and their children's choices, its about finding common ground above all social differences and rivalry, too many to just list. I'm sure the careful viewer can enjoy finding even more.