Istoria 52

If we look at this from a certain distance, this was really an ambitious project. Framed memories, time overlapping, time entrapment, memories which merge with reality, dreams which merge with an awake state, all that mixed and merged before our eyes, making us enter the confusion of the on-screen character. This is contemporary, this is what some of the best filmmakers, and specially, some of the best writers, have been doing.

Place this set-up, and the ambition to tell such a 'tale' in the hands of a director debuting in a long form. This tale should instigate reflexion, and self-reflection. This is what we have here.

I, myself, have some pretensions to try and use the medium of cinema someday. Bearing that in mind, there are times in which i wonder what the possibilities are, and what has been done so far. I think it takes a lot of courage to embrace such a project. I appreciate the effort. But i didn't ignore the overall failure of this.

The thing is the apparent in-definition of the framed world, and the sense of it. Basically this is more close to an X-file episode, juicy but brainless, than to a Phil Dick story, working on layers of reality, bending time, or working parallel realities. But still, its visual construction is clearly made with the ambition to make you think, not to entertain. There is even a joke on that when somewhere in the middle a character states that "if nothing happens in the film at the end of 2 hours, the public will protest".

So, whether he was insane, or forces superior to him captured him in a defined time unit is not important because what happens is useless. It's a visual candy, yes, well framed, well photographed, and well acted by the protagonist. But there's a spark (still) missing. Let's see where this new director will go.

My opinion: 2/5

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This is the debut long feature for the director, and it is a very nice surprise for the Greek cinema. Indeed, Alexiou manages to tell an extraordinary tale in an interesting and convincing manner. The narration follows a circular pattern, where the central hero keeps remembering and reliving the story of how he met the woman he loves. This may remind someone of the films by David Lynch, and it is true that Alexiou seems to have been influenced by the great American director, although it would be unfair to compare the two, since this is only a debut film which cannot avoid having some weaknesses, especially as far as the screenplay is concerned. It is also vague what the director tries to communicate with this film, although one might think of paranoid jealousy, mental and spiritual idleness (in a way the exact opposite of "L'amour fou"), mental instability and the circularity of time which prevents people from accomplishing their goals. In any case, this seems to be a unique movie in modern Greek cinema, and I am sure that people from other countries will also enjoy it, as long as they have in mind that it is only a first feature film.

"Tale 52" starts with silent pasta preparation, leading up to a dinner party. Although set in 2010, the women wear ridiculously heavy, late 1970s make-up. I guess nobody is safe from retro fads, least of all the people of the future. All of which is beside the point. Iasonas (Yorgos Kakanakis) goes through an ordeal so painful, so profound and so inexplicable you can't help feeling for him. Not only does he suffer from hellish headaches, a rotting apartment and a cheating girlfriend. At the heart of his misery lies the suspicion that he is his own worst enemy. Either he's going crazy, or something is seriously wrong with the world around him. The fact that his table lamp seems to be changing colors over night is the least of his problems. There are other characters in the story, namely his girlfriend Penelope, but essentially this is a one-person chamber play set in Jason's mind. Well-written, minutely directed, and superbly acted, "Tale 52" is anything but a polished mainstream movie and evokes memories of some of the finest features ever made: Darren Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream", Alejandro Amenábar's "Open Your Eyes", Michel Gondry's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", Julio Medem's "Sex and Lucia", Paul Verhoeven's "Total Recall". If their stories spoke to you, chances are you need to hear "Tale 52". Says Iasonas: "It's the story of someone telling a story that is very similar to his own."

This thriller seriously suffers from the illness that could be summed up as "form over substance". Until the very end we do not know which events are real and which happen only in imagination of the protagonist. It doesn't really matter anyway, because this story - which could be easily summarized in no more than three sentences - is not absorbing, leaving audience uninterested in developments of the plot. One watches consecutive versions of this simple story with growing fatigue, the more so the ending of the movie can be predicted long before the obvious finale.

To sum up, "Tale 52" is boring for a thriller and too simplistic to be treated as a study of insanity. You will make better use of your time if you watch "Lost Highway" by David Lynch instead - the movie that is formally similar, but much much better.

My rating: 2/10