Το επόμενο άρθρο εκφωνήθηκε στο πλαίσιο του 3ου Συμποσίου Υποψηφίων Διδακτόρων στις Νεοελληνικές Σπουδές στο Πανεπιστήμιο London School of Economics. Η χρησιμότητα τέτοιων συνάξεων είναι περισσότερο η οικοδόμηση του στρατηγικού προφίλ ενός ακαδημαϊκού τμήματος ως ηγετικού και λιγότερο η ανταλλαγή ουσιαστικών απόψεων. Και αυτό γιατί οι συνεδρίες είναι τόσο ετερόκλητες, οι συντονιστές δεν μπορούν εκ των πραγμάτων να έχουν άποψη για την ουσία των προβληματισμών, μπορούν όμως ανάλογα την προσωπικότητά τους να δώσουν συμβουλές. Και αυτό είναι το σημαντικό, αν κανείς θέλει να πάρει τη γνώμη ενός άλλου εκτός του επιβλέποντος καθηγητή.
Το άρθρο αποτελεί προβληματισμό δύο ετερόκλητων πεδίων. Από τη μια συμπυκνώνει τα πορίσματα για μια αδημοσίευτη μελέτη για την Αλίκη Βουγιουκλάκη και από την άλλη αποτελεί πεδίο προβληματισμού για το περιεχόμενο και την καρδιά του διδακτορικού μου.
University of the Aegean
Department of Cultural Technology and Communication
www.aegean.gr/culturaltec/
Lieutenant Natasha: indirect support or critical
assessment of the Greek dictatorship?
(The burden of history in Greek cinema)
Ntellis Achilleas, PhD student, University of the Aegean (IKY scholar
for Film Studies) a.ntellis@ct.aegean.gr
Introduction
In this paper I am going to examine one crucial aspect of one particular
film through three different dimensions. This position refers to a general idea
but never justifiable, so far as I know. After 1974, in the 15th Thessaloniki
Festival, some opinions surfaced arguing that epic films such as Lieutenant
Natasha/Υπολοχαγός Νατάσσα (YN) supported the Colonel’s regime and did
not confront it at all (Kamvasinou 2006: 242). In the extremely political
atmosphere of the mid 70’s, due to the defamation of the so-called Old Greek
Cinema/Παλιός Ελληνικός Κινηματογράφος ΠΕΚ and the eminence of a new
generation of directors with Angelopoulos’ explicit thematic and stylistic
domination, the film industry and popular films collapsed. I am going to
examine this general idea in the film YN because the latter displays some not
so symptomatic characteristics. First of all, YN was screened at cinemas the
same year as Angelopoulos’ Αναπαράσταση (Aν). At the box office YN is
ΠΕΚ largest commercial success and Aν occupies one of the last entries. It
seems to me that both pay heed to the historical narrative of crucial periods of
Modern Greek life, the first being right-wing and the second being left-wing,
however not exclusively. The former uses all the stylistic and thematic
conventions of Greek film tradition from a slightly different viewpoint, the
latter introduces the Brectian “Verfremdungseffekt" or the "alienation effect”
in both narrative and form. In other words, Aν introduced the then
contemporary European ideas to Greek cinema, while the former observed
quiescently Greek identity. From these perspectives, I think the commercial
success of YN constitutes the best paradigm of the examination of its
historical dimension which has been constructed via three factors: Aliki
Vouyouklaki’s (Α.V.) persona, Nikos Foskolos’ career as screenwriter and
director and the genre of epic drama films.
1.1. Aliki Vouyouklaki’s star persona
At first, I want to outline briefly the main ideas that have arisen in
relation to stardom. In film studies, Richard Dyer’s seminal book ‘Stars’ deals
with actors and actresses as texts and signs with explicit ideological and social
references (Dyer 1979: 22-98). Stars embody audience desire and from the
origins of this phenomenon around 1910, the American film industry
developed several tactics to feed the media’s lust for information about their
employees’ personal and artistic lives. Gradually, separate on and off screen
lives became at times fused and unrelenting. As Christine Geranthy
demonstrates, ‘it is this duality of image which is deemed to mark a star, a
duality which emphasizes a balance between the site of fictional performance
and life outside…between the glamorous film world and the surprisingly
ordinary domestic life of the star.’ (Geranthy 2004: 185)If this is the main
characteristic of the persona of a star, there are another three features of
stardom, according to Pramaggiore and Wallis: the film industry, the persona
and finally subculture/fandom. (Pramaggiore, Wallis 2005: 331-332)
Aliki Vouyouklaki is an example of a star, because her personal and
cinematic life is inseparable. Her private and professional lives feed each
other. The Greek film industry depended on her persona. A.V appeared on
screen in 1954 as a protagonist and after 1959 as a star. Until 1971 her career
could be divided into the following periods:
1. 1954-1959: The Progressive Period. She is very unphotogenic in
comparison with the joyful, blonde and strongly made-up face after
1963 with the film To Δόλωμa. She connects herself with young people
and consumerism.
2. 1959-1961: The Consolidation Period. The film To ξύλο βγήκε από τον
παράδεισο was not only a big hit. In this movie she costarred with
Dimitris Papamichail and they appear together in sixteen films
between 1959 and 1971. The persona in this period begins to form.
Main characteristics: androgyny, camp, puerility.
3. 1961-1966: The Affirmation Period. She adds her sexual image and
epitomizes the sartorial identity of Greek women.
4. 1966-1967: The Parenthesis of Renewal. With two movies
(Διπλοπενιές, Η κόρη μου η σοσιαλίστρια) A.V. tries to disengage her
star persona from the foolish blonde school teenager figure in terms of
genre and ideology.
5. 1967-1969: Return to the Standard. The artistic and commercial failure
of the previous films forces A.V. to adopt the path of her secure star
persona.
6. 1969-1973: The Still-born Renewal. A.V is getting on for her forties and
cannot be a joyful young woman. She tries to change herself. The epic drama film Υπολοχαγός Νατάσα (Lieutenant Natasha) can be seen from
this perspective.
1.2.A.V. as a star in YN
A.V.’s new dimension to her star persona was given impressive
reviews by Greek newspapers. Reviewers agreed more or less that «αποβάλει
τα γνώριμα κλισέ, αυτά στα οποία οφείλει την πλατειά της δημοτικότητα»
; and
«σαν αρχή η κ.Β. θα πρέπει να ενθαρρυνθή να συνεχίση τον
δρόμο που φαίνεται να θέλη να χαράξη με την ταινία της αυτή.
Υπάρχουν στιγμές που θυμίζουν ότι αν θελήση μπορεί να εκφράση
καταστάσεις και ρόλους που πολύ απέχουν από την «πεπατημένη»
των ταινιών της των τελευταίων ετών».(Kousoumidis 1979: 171)
In the initial stages it seems that film critic journalism pinpoints the
difference in her role in comparison with other movies. Thirty years later, two
other scholars, Yannis Soldatos and Maria Paradeisi, shared the same opinion.
Paradeisi believes that there was a new variation to A.V’s persona, which was
distant from the popular girl who achieved her goal with her audacity,
ingenuity, determination and naughtiness (Paradeisi 2006: 233-234) . Soldatos
claims:
«Όλα κραυγαλέα στην ταινία [ΥΝ], στο γνώριμο ύφος του Φώσκολου,
με δράση και κλάμα πέρα από τα μέτρα της χαρούμενης ώριμης ή
ανώριμης παιδούλας που ως τότε ενσάρκωνε στην οθόνη η
Βουγιουκλάκη. Και η Εθνική Αντίσταση πέρασε στο φόντο για να
προβληθούν τα αισθήματα και τα κάλλη της πρωταγωνίστριας» (Soldatos
2001: 59)
The first opinion echoes the reviews. The second one repeats some
general thoughts about the actors’ position in Greek cinema, as the generation
of the breakthrough periodical Σύγχρονος Κινηματογράφος developed a
fragmentary theory. I am not going to focus on this. Rather I believe that
Soldatos’ second opinion was negated by the film itself. Let’s see the final
sequence, in which two scenes correspond with two stages of A.V. star
persona new construction.
With the arrival at Aliartos’ train station a large number of citizens
welcome her. The reception becomes a double acclamation: firstly the ovation
of A.V.’s star persona and secondly as the resistance woman who is more or
less a heroine. In this way Natasha’s double essence accepts the honors of the
army and the title of Lieutenant in a male-dominated profession. At that
moment Natasha subordinates her female identity to the models of military
masculinity. Later on, when the camera films the plain where her dead
husband lies, Natasha passes a double row of soldiers who raise their phallic
symbols, their arms. When Natasha leaves them behind, the soldiers put their
arms down at the behest of the officer. It is at that moment when the heroine
is beyond the concept of masculinity and the hero. In fact she is in the sphere
of female bravery and posthumous fame. There, she confronts another male,
her husband, but this time, the latter is dead and mythologized.
At this point Natasha incorporates three identity shifts: the first
departs from the identifying with the version of male militarism, the second
pushes the female identity beyond the social norms of obedience and the
confines of the family and the third elevates the woman, Natasha, into the
sphere of posthumous fame. The last dimension revives A.V.’s star persona,
as it accompanies the pussycat persona from the movie Το ξύλο βγήκε από
τον παράδεισο. This progressive and regressive movement towards the
reception and rejection of (military) masculinity expresses a critical position to
male domination and power.
This latent critical attitude appears also in her attempt to talk, at the
end of the narrative. It is an attempt that belongs not only to the
melodramatic tone of the film, as she is a captive of her fate, but to the epic
dimension: she cannot talk to her son about the military past. She has to be
silent, to bring it within her psyche, within her fantasies mixed with
compulsion. In fact she cannot communicate freely about facts that have
marked her life since 1943, the year in which the film stopped the historical
narrative. Her emotions and thoughts are pent-up. When she tells her son,
“Yes, my son I feel you, (ναι παιδί μου σε νιώθω)”, she embraces him for 55
seconds. In this last scene in the plain the long embrace, the voice of the son
which comes from the past, inasmuch as it is the same voice as his father’s,
the conveyance of bravery to the new male generation creates a mesh of past,
present and future.
This contradiction between Natasha’s trouble to express herself in the
present, (and the present in the movie is the year 1970) and the convenience to
talk in the past (and the past in YN is WW2 until 1943, as Paradeisi argues
(Paradeisi 2006: 237-238)) and consequently to hear her voice and her
thoughts, indirectly can be seen as a latent political comment. This transfer
from the past to present strengthens from her appearance in film. The
ineffective attempt of being an old and young woman simultaneously
functions at two different levels. In 1970 A.V. is 37 years old and her role
demands two different time periods. She is playing a young girl, almost in her
late teenage period, who comes to maturity at middle age through national
sufferings. If the time passage between the young and mature woman is fixed
more or less between 20 and 50, the 37year old V. does not realistically
represent either that she is 20 or 50 years old. She is too old to be young and
too beautified and smooth to be middle-aged. The time gap of almost 30 years
gives the opportunity to combine two different images, the rebellious but also
compromised woman. This to some degree explains the huge success of the
film with the audience and especially the female one, because this 30 years
gap constitutes an age group, guiding two different generations to identify
itself from a different standpoint: from being critical to remaining faithful
followers of the Greek idol.
Let’s see now how this time gap takes place in the movie.
Vouyouklaki’s deliberate decision to be youthful is detected by two
mechanisms: the close-up where the viewer admires her fresh face and
clothes, which do not fit in with the Occupation period of the ‘40’s but with
the hippy era. For example, when she helps the villagers to roll the carriage,
the voluminous belt which ties her dainty waist, the chromatic differences
between her warm clothes and the countrymen, the symbolic blonde hair, the
pretentious movement of her body which is without question non realistic,
the distance between her and the other people, and finally slow motion forces
the narrative to be subordinate to A.V.’s star persona rather than Natasha’s
character. The star Vouyouklaki undermines the movie’s historical dimension
and transfers the ideological implications of the movie to the present time of
1970 and moreover to the then her star persona.
Let’s see another crucial scene, which adds a new direction to the
Vouyouklaki movie career. The example is the wedding ceremony.
According to Eliza-Anna Delveroudi, «τα γυναικεία χαρακτηριστικά της
[θράσος και τσαχπινιά] δεν έγιναν εποικοδομητικά όπλα με τα οποία το
γυναικείο φύλο θα μπορούσε να θριαμβεύσει επί του ανδρικού στην
κυριότερη επιδίωξή του, το γάμο.» (Delveroudi 2002:141). I do not wish to
comment on the melancholic feminism of this view. Rather I will adopt it in a
slightly different context in order to say that in fact Natasha marries her lover.
But this happens in the middle of the plot. If the marriage is the
accomplishment at the end of films after 1959, from 1965 onwards it is located
in the middle. So, this shift which is expressed clearly in YN, has narrative
complications. In YN, the orthodox marriage takes place in the middle of the
film in a highly dramatic scene. The marriage repeatedly echoes the true
marriage of Vouyouklaki and Papamichail in 1965. Even the display of
Natasha and Orestis’ son calls to mind the recent birth of Vouyouklaki and
Papamichail’s son. At this wedding ceremony we do not only see the fictional
wedding. The viewer is reminded of her personal life and interprets the
cinematic-public fact through the private sphere. It is searching for the
repetition of the famous couple and its cinemythology, but this time new
directions are added by A.V.’s decision to add a new variety in her star
persona, as she repeatedly admits in interviews of this period (Kousoumidis
1979: 247).
The new star persona can now be sketched. In terms of a duple
personality in both personal and public life, the new star persona is the fighter
woman both in private and civic sphere: fighter not only to accomplish her
goals, i.e. to marry her love. She is marrying, but the obstacles after Δασκάλα
με τα χρυσά μαλλιά and YN comes from outside, the national and social
battles rather than erotic ones.
2. The historical narrative of Foskolos’ movies.
One of the major views of Foskolos’ movies generally and YN
specifically is that they ideologically supported the Greek Junta. Although
this opinion has never been developed and justified, it arises from the
commercial success of his movies, the technical support on behalf of the
dictatorship and Foskolos’ directorial inauguration after 1967. The last belief
ignores that Filopimin Finos, Foskolos’ employer of the well-known Finos
Film Production Company, promoted already well-tried and successful
screenwriters to become directors, as for example, Alekos Sakelarios. I think
the most obvious accusation that someone could charge Foskolos’
movies with, is the analogy between social themes and political reality going
hand in hand with the melodrama genre. This mixture of different aspects led
some to grasp its meanings through the general political and realistic glasses
of the ‘70s’. By observing Foskolos’ whole film and television career, I think it
is acceptable to admit that the melodramatic tone fits in more with his
personality, however with other Greek directors, such as Angelopoulos, the
ideological base of the movie matches.
Foskolos entered the Greek film industry in 1959. He was already 30
years old. Peter Greenaway in an interview for Greek Television once said
that an artist has formed his personality by this age ( Zacharopoulou 2005:
ET1). What prevailed in Greek cinema in relation to recording recent history
was the silence and the adoption of the dominant viewpoint with reference to
the traumatic events of the Occupation and the Civil War, as Yannis
Andritsos argues. After 1963, two major notions were formed through two
different movies. Προδότης and Μπλόκο display the official version and the
socialist version of the EAM role in the Resistance respectively. According to
Andritsos, the movies of the first category
«αναπαριστούν τα απίστευτα κατορθώματα των σαμποτέρ ή
παρουσιάζουν μελοδραματικές ιστορίες με φόντο την Κατοχή. Η
αντίσταση παρουσιάζεται σαν αποκλειστικό δημιούργημα των
προσπαθειών της εξόριστης κυβέρνησης και περιορίζεται στον αγώνα
μικρών ομάδων στις οποίες ηγούνται αξιωματικοί. Μοναδικός σκοπός
είναι [η] απελευθέρωση. Δεν γίνεται καμιά νύξη στην κοινωνική
διάσταση της Αντίστασης και αποσιωπάται ο ρόλος της αριστεράς.
Έχουμε την ολοκληρωτική διαστρέβλωση της αλήθειας και τη
δημιουργία μίας εικονικής πραγματικότητας. [Οι ταινίες
χαρακτηρίζονται] από τον ψεύτικο ηρωισμό και το
μελοδραματισμό. (Andritsos 2004:57)
In contrast Μπλόκο did not create a tradition because the dictatorship
stopped such a development, mainly because the Greek cinema had already
adopted a more compromised view of recent history. Examining the film
production of the 50’s, Maria Stassinopoulou pinpoints that commercial films
followed the parody and irony in the case of comedy ( βλ. Ένας ήρωας με
παντούφλες) and the melodramatic tone (βλ. Οι ουρανοί είναι δικοί μας). In
both ways censorship was surpassed (Stassinopoulou 2000: 37-52). This
conducted directors and screenwriters to choose an ambiguous frame for
their stories in order to speak for contemporary themes.
Under these circumstances, Foskolos entered the film industry in the
late 50’s following the tradition of compromise and the ambiguity. 1959 is the
era of the increase in competition between companies and mostly the
emergence of the Greek star system and Vouyouklaki as a national idol, as
established by Editor Eleni Vlachou (Kousoumidis 1979:203). Foskolos had
already tried his luck in theater, radio plays and literature. After 1959
Foskolos became primarily a screenwriter. It is not symptomatic that Aglaia
Mitropoulou’s influential book Ελληνικός Κινηματογράφος refers to him as
scenarist of the movie Το χώμα βάφτηκε κόκκινο. Undoubtedly, it is a
considerable movie inasmuch as it won international festival success and
principally, depicted recent history with a reference to a parabolic social
event of the past. According to Athena Kartalou, Το χώμα βάφτηκε κόκκινο is
a key movie for the unfulfilled genre of social accusations (ταινίες
κοινωνικής καταγγελίας) (Kartalou 2005, 2006: PhD, 154). In this film
Foskolos is the screenwriter and Georgiadis the director, while in YN
Foskolos is the screenwriter and director.
Both films share some common elements in terms of form, narrative,
and historical representation. Natasha’s family house recalls the Chornova
one on the Thessalian plain. Several scenes of characters riding are reminders
of unsuccessful scenes of Georgiadis’ movie. Both protagonists (Odysseas
Chornovas/Nikos Kourkoulos, Orestis-Natasha Arseni) are constructed from
the position they have to take towards one particular historical moment (In
Xoma towards the acceptance of the agricultural movement and in YN the
involvement with the Resistance). The latter challenges them to march from
ignorance to knowledge, from inactivity to action and finally from
individuality to a kind of solidarity. This transition from private happiness to
public and national maturity is followed by the intense conflict between
characters’ loneliness and the perspective of future recognition as heroes by
their citizens. When they decide to do something for their motherland, they
have to sacrifice something or no part of their private life. While In Χώμα the
hero played by Nikos Kourkoulos achieves simultaneously personal and
national accomplishment, in YN the heroine played by A.V. faces up to the
destruction of love and the failure of her secret national mission. If Χώμα of
1965 has explicit political references and skepticism about the Greek
establishment, as Aglaia Mitropoulou believes, in YN of 1970 the political and
cinematic dead-end is prominent, as the final scene reveals: Natasha
embraces her son and imagines her past private happiness through the new
generation. (I will explain in the next chapter)
It is clear, I think, that from the beginning of his career Foskolos was
interested in the melodramatic representation of history rather than the
ideological one. I summarize: YN must be seen through three perspectives,
the Foskolian way of looking at recent history, the compromised Greek film
industry tradition of historical narratives and the way the audience accepts
history. I do not examine at this point the last one.
I now move onto the representation of past events when referred to as
present, i.e. how the events of the Occupation era deal with the Colonel’s
dictatorship. The movie YN tells the story of a missing woman’s return
Natasha, who travels from a German sanatorium to Greece. As she
approaches the Greek landscape, her memories begin. Natasha’s past is
represented by three flashbacks. I will examine the ideological implication of
the flashback in the third section.
At this point, I want to sketch the way of entering these. I will take the
line upon which the flashback is defined: the concept of time. In YN, now is
dated in the movie back in 1965, as the opening scene shows (Konstantinidis,
Kokalenios 1997: CD ROM, website of Tainiothiki). Watching the German
cars in the movies and Natasha’s clothes, I believe that this 1965 slips into
1970. I think that this contradiction between 1965 and 1970 is a matter of
escapism from censorship. I also add that I have seen two different editions of
the movies; one with the date (1965) shown in the opening scene and one
without it. I do not probe it at all. I return to the time and flashback. Now
(and now is 1970, not 1965) has little space in the narrative in comparison
with the past. While the camera zooms in Natasha’s stone face and straight-
faced look, an impression is formed: now lasts for a long time. It seems that
Natasha is haunted by some terrible fact of the past, which in turn obsesses
the present. In other words, although now is limited, it acquires further space
through Natasha’s expression.
When she fantasizes about past events, two important factors are
revealed as determining her involvement in the Resistance group: Max, the
German officer with Greek origin and the spectators in the theater. Max’s role
played by Costas Carras belongs to a series of characters in Foskolos
screenplays where their names show double descent, as Athena Kartalou
argues (Kartalou 2005: PhD). His father is a German officer and his mother
Greek. The implication of the Oedipus complex, the blond hair, the German
profile and his passionate love imply his anxiety to be accepted by Natasha’s
maternal figure. Although Max becomes obsessive about his costume and his
phallic arm, his figure ultimately is not repulsive. He is cute, fluent in Greek
his ambiguity between his admiration for Greek people and civilization and
his duty to obey German instructions as invader is accompanied by a double
and metaphoric discourse.
If vacillation and need for acceptance are the key points of Max’s
character, I will now focus on how Max and Natasha’s relationship is
developed. Undoubtedly, their affinity is neutral at first. As the narrative
progresses, their relationship escalates like a game of cat and dog. Mostly,
when both collide, the crowd intervenes. I refer to a scene, where Natasha for
first time faces the possibility of involvement with the Resistance. In a very
well constructed scene in terms of cause and effect, men of the resistance
invade the theater, where Natasha is ending her performance. After a while,
Max enters. The collision is not only between Natasha and Max. It is amongst
artist Natasha, frustrated audience and the German officer as well. The
construction of the shots is significant. Close-up for Natasha’s face, medium
shot for Max and extreme long shot for audience.
Each shot has explicit ideological implication. We are watching
Natasha’s close-up, which recapitulates A.V.’s star persona: star Aliki as the
ultimate and unique star who charms the audience of this theater and
indirectly the Greek cinema for over 10 years. She is enjoyable and a light-
hearted maiden. The least but important contribution is to show the fugitive’s
exit is ambiguous, as her star persona is ambiguous in terms of her age:
young and middle aged woman, light-hearted maiden of ‘60s and mature
woman of the 70’s. Her contribution occurs at the time of the German
Occupation. But, if we follow Foskolos synchronic reference of past events,
we can define the boundaries, in which the artist must realize his/her role,
and his/her obligations towards the regime. This latent political stance comes
together with the general one of high culture and pop culture in this period,
as Roderick Beaton argues. In his breakthrough Introduction to Modern Greek
literature, he claims that the metaphoric and connotative discourse dominates
in the literature and culture of this era (Beaton 1996: 330-334,338-340). It is not
symptomatic that Natasha sings about metaphoric concepts such as ascent
(ανηφοριά), descent (κατηφοριά), and darkness (σκοτεινιά). At the end the
crowd applauds her warmly, although it is from a more or less passive
position. People’s neutrality appears again at the end of the film, where it is
watching silently the ceremony behind the Greek contingent. In this aspect
YN indirectly produces a sensation of a latent anti-dictatorship conscience.
3. The epic drama genre
The great commercial success in 1971 coincides chronologically with
the Georgios Seferis declaration in 1969 and with the publication of
Δεκαοχτώ κείμενα in June 1970 (Beaton 1996: 331). Putting the movie in this
broad cultural context a crucial question appears: to what extent does the
film’s militant mood amounts directly to the support of the colonels’ regime;
and furthermore how the audience could endorse the movie’s antifascism
with 750.000 tickets in the middle of the Greek junta while at the same time
appearing antimilitaristic and democratic, if it appears?
The answer to the second question (if the Greek people of 1970 were
completely antimilitaristic) will provide some explanations for the former
(indirect support of militarism). According to most historians of Modern
Greek History( Veremis, Koliopoulos 2006: 442, Clogg 2003:191, Close2002,
140, Rizas 2003:50), the economic boom and vigor are determinants of
establishing the colonels’ regime in the first four years. Within a mechanism
of censorship art found its way by adopting ambivalence and indirect speech.
In such a way the ambiguity of Vouyouklaki’s persona and Caras’ thoughts
can be seen. Their vacillation blends with a general one of the Greek people
towards the dictatorship. Only when the Greeks realized that the Resistance
could be in vain did the opposition gain public support. Three major facts
decisively influenced the change of direction: the Polytechnic School
rebellion, the first petroleum crisis in 1973 and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus
(Gallant 2001:201-202).
If the Greek public and audience speculated and tolerated the
behaviour of the dictators, the answer to the first point (to what extent the
film’s militant mood amounts directly to the support of the colonels’ regime)
will be given if the genre of the film and the connection with popular art is
considered. Maria Paradeisi argues in an inexplicit text that the genre of the
film wavers between melodrama and the epic movie (Paradeisi 2006: 233-234).
In this paper, I agree with this contradiction and its’ terms. I also add that the
epic/polemic frame gives the melodrama its dynamic.
The examination of this seeming contradiction between the genre of
the epic and the melodrama reveals that although the movie enlists the
glorious past of the WW2, it eulogizes the feats in arms and the sufferings of
an ahistoric and fantastic persona. The conflict between the historical frame of
a large national and nationalist narrative and the minor fate signifies another
conflict in the level of film ideology: while the premise seems to have wide
target, the latter applies in terms of a false character. Furthermore the use of
flashback is crucial.
According to Hayward
“Flashbacks are “naturally aligned with history since they make the
spectator aware of the past. They are both history and story. But they are a
particular representation of the past because it is subjectivised through one or
several people’s memories. History/story becomes personalized and is
narrated through the heroics or the eyes of the individual. The ideological
and indeed the nationalistic implications of this are clear. By framing history
as an individual experience and because a film in flashback is based on the
premise that cause and effect are reversed (we know the result before we
know the cause), history can become didactic: a moral lesson is to be learnt-
alternatively, as in times of war, it can lead to patriotic identification.”
(Hayward 2003: 134-135)
The three flashbacks in YN through the first person narration,
introduces Natasha’s subjectivity, as in the first and second section it
analyzed.
From this point of view, the ideology of the epic movie does not
enhance the national identity, as the latter is expressed by the Colonel’s
propaganda, as someone could argue, but the melodramatic tone of one
minor-unimportant fighter undercuts the efforts of compliance in one version
of the militaristic-national identity. Thus how, (remember some tools of the
reception film theory) the plethora of the audience really saw the movie could
identify itself with one heroic version of the glorification of the martial ethos,
which vis-à-vis corresponded with the militant mood.
This last idea brings us to the concept of the popular cinema, which, as
Elftheriotis argues, should be examined in parallel with the national identity
(Eleftheriotis 2001:25-46). At last, the whole ideology of Greece after WW2
comes to a critical point in this film. In fact, the conservative ideology touches
the extreme boundaries of insecurity.
Conclusion
In the paper I tried to change some general but never explained
thoughts about the perception of one particular film which in turn belongs to
a great film tradition of Greek cinema in a specific temporal moment. I also
tried to give some explanations why this film text should be examined in
terms not only of film studies but of cultural studies as well. And this last
point raises another great challenging question, which needs answering. Why
films under the umbrella of the term popular cinema are defamed and
moreover, why the film itself is undermined within Greek culture? I think the
answer is not located only in the dichotomy between high and popular art.
The crucial point is how the history is represented in popular and art Greek
cinema. History in Greek films is not only a matter of explicit social
dimensions, as it believed. History in Greek films is a burden mixed with
different elements, terms and points of views.
With this case study I tried to examine not a simply defamed popular
movie. YN is a milestone within Greek cinema. Whether we like it or not,
whether we have lived through the 70’s or not, whether we belong to the right
or left, movies call for consideration. Almost 40 years after its’ screening, YN
reveals its ambiguity and latent premise.
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