Prosopo me prosopo / Face to Face (2022 restoration Tainiothiki Tis Ellado)

Roviros Manthoulis: Πρόσωπο με πρόσωπο / Prosopo me prosopo / Face to Face (GR 1966) with Eleni Stavropoulou (Varvara). 

Πρόσωπο με πρόσωπο .
    Grecia 1966. Director: Roviros Manthoulis. Scen.: Roviros Manthoulis, Kostas Mourselas. F.: Stamatis Trypos. M.: Panos Papakyriakopoulos. Scgf.: Yannis Migadis. Mus.: Nikos Mamangakis. Int.: Costas Messaris (Dimitris Emmanouil), Eleni Stavropoulou (Varvara), Theano Ioannidou (la madre), Labros Kotsiris (il padre), Alexis Georgiou, Mary Gotsi (la cameriera), Simon Hinkly (fidanzato), Eftihia Partheniadou, Paris Pappis (l’armatore), Zozo Papadimitriou. Prod.: Roviros Manthoulis. DCP. Bn. 85 min
    Unreleased in Finland.

    Language: Greek, with some German and English. DCP with English subtitles.

    DCP from Greek Film Archive Film Museum

    Courtesy of Robert Manthoulis Estate. Restored in 4K in 2022 by Tainiothiki Tis Ellados at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory and Costas Varibopiotis Sound Studio laboratories, from the 35 mm original negative. Funding provided by “A Season of Classic Films”, an initiative of ACE – Association des Cinémathèques Européennes, part of the European Commission’s Creative Europe MEDIA programme and with the support of the Operational Programme Rop Attiki of NSRF 2014-2020

    Introduce Maria Komninos (Ταινιοθήκη της Ελλάδος / Tainiothiki tis Ellados / Greek Film Archive).

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna, 2023 : Recovered and Restored.

    Viewed at Arlecchino Cinema, 26 June 2023.

Nigel Andrews (quoted in Bologna 2023 catalog): " Though acclaimed on its first appearance (it won the Best Direction Awards at both the Salonica and Athens Film Festivals in 1966), Prosopo me prosopo has been subsequently banned in its native country. Manthoulis himself, pressurised by the authorities into leaving Greece, now lives in Paris… And though much of the political satire in Prosopo me prosopo is veiled or oblique, the overall message is spelled out clearly enough to make Manthoulis’ unpopularity with the higher powers understandable. Set during the days of turbulence which led to the Generals’ coup, the film brings its troubled academic hero face to face with the workings of bourgeois capitalism at its most omnivorous and exploitative, incarnated here in a wealthy family who set out to devour their daughter’s tutor. The film’s title suggests a confrontation, and Manthoulis’ satire works not only by pitting the hero’s scholarly ingenuousness against the alternate sophistication and brute appetite of his employers, but by establishing an insistent and ironic counterpoint between the old, classical Greece and its new, materialistic counterpart. Manthoulis’ wealthy family are seen as the new barbarians (the daughter’s name Barbara is an explicit pun), and their impending seizure of power is suggested by the presentation of their house as a kind of labyrinthine political HQ, with rooms linked by intercom and all movement of guests or personnel traced on a scale map of the interior. " Nigel Andrews, “Monthly Film Bulletin”, 1 January 1972

Achilleas Hadjikyriacou (quoted in Bologna 2023 catalog): " Dimitris embodies a typical working-class man who, despite holding a university degree, lives almost in poverty. His entrance into the house of a rich Athenian family signifies the beginning of his meeting with a new code of morals and values. This new code initially dominates his rather traditional beliefs regarding gender, sexuality, morality, entertainment, material culture and family relations. At the end of the film, however, Dimitris performs his own personal revolution and dares to abandon an environment which antagonizes his personality and depresses his manhood. In this way, he becomes a symbol of the rejection of modernity and upper-class lifestyle and, at the same time, a heroic prototype of working-class masculinity. " Achilleas Hadjikyriacou, Masculinity and Gender in Greek Cinema 1949-1967, Bloomsbury, London 2015

AA: In memoriam Robert Manthoulis (1929-2022) who died last year in Paris of Covid-19.

I was introduced in the 1970s to Manthoulis's work via his superb blues documentaries Le Blues entre les dents / Blues Under the Skin and En remontant le Mississippi / Out of the Blacks, Into the Blues 1–2. Robert Pete Williams was electrifying in them, as were all the other masters, many rarely or never caught on film before.

Prosopo me prosopo is the first Greek film by Manthoulis I have seen. It is a delightful contribution to 1960s New Wave cinema, a mixture of urban alienation, social realism and irreverent satire somewhere between Jean-Luc Godard and Richard Lester. All channelled and conveyed in an original voice of the director's own.

An arranged marriage of the daughter of a Greek millionaire family is planned to a rich British man, and a two-week crash course in English is needed. Dimitris starts to give language lessons to the irrepressible Barbara. The nouveau riche apartment is equipped with intercom, also used for control and eavesdropping.

Manthoulis offers observations of modern alienation such as people speaking past each other, goofy montages, freeze frames and speech bubbles to convey thought.

It is a patriarchal family in which a hidden matriarchy is inbuilt. The mother calls the shots and the daughter seems to follow in her footsteps. Both women are uninhibitedly sensual, and succeed in seducing the young Dimitris - dream or reality? Perhaps a bit of both.

Social reality is present all the time in the center of Athens. Bullet marks on walls, memories of the Nazi occupation, huge demonstrations on the streets, expressions of a great unrest that was about to be crushed one year later by military dictatorship. No doubt the millionaire family would belong to its backers. Robert Manthoulis went into Paris exile for the rest of his life.

A lovely restoration of an inspiring film.

For students of film narrative it is appealing to see a film which actually ends with Τέλος (Telos).

...

Βικιπαίδεια:

Πλοκή

Βρισκόμαστε στην πολυτάραχη εποχή του μεταπολέμου. Ο νεαρός Δημήτρης Εμμανουήλ, καθηγητής αγγλικής φιλολογίας από τη Θεσσαλονίκη δεν έχει μέλλον, και σχεδιάζει να φύγει για την Αυστραλία. Οι διαδικασίες είναι όμως πολύ αυστηρές, και επειδή δεν έχει πατέρα, η βίζα του αργεί να εγκριθεί. Για να βγάλει το μεροκάματο δίνει μαθήματα αγγλικών, και έτσι προσλαμβάνεται κατά τύχη από έναν μεγαλοεπιχειρηματία, που ήρθε από την Αλεξάνδρεια.

Ο Δημήτρης πέφτει μέσα σε μια κοινωνία, που έχει τους δικούς της νόμους και ρυθμούς. Στο κέντρο της Αθήνας, στο ρετιρέ της λεωφόρου Κηφισίας 38, σε μια υπερπολυτελή πολυκατοικία, του ανοίγεται ένας αστικός μικρόκοσμος της χλιδής, της υποκρισίας και του ψυχρού χρήματος. Ο πατέρας θέλει να αρραβωνιάσει την κόρη του, τη Βαρβάρα, με έναν πλούσιο Εγγλέζο, και ο Δημήτρης πρέπει να της μάθει αγγλικά μέσα σε δεκαπέντε ημέρες.

Ο Δημήτρης προσπαθεί να αντεπεξέλθει, αλλά το σπίτι είναι ένα τρελοκομείο. Ο πατέρας ασχολείται μόνο με τις επιχειρήσεις του, ενώ οι εργάτες στους δρόμους διαδηλώνουν, ο νεαρός τεντιμπόης ρίχνεται στην υπηρέτρια, η μητέρα παίζει συνέχεια κουμκάν με τέσσερις φιλενάδες της, μια από αυτές και μια ξεπεσμένη αρχόντισσα από τη Μόσχα που με την επανάσταση κατέφυγε στην Οδησσό, από εκεί στην Κωνσταντινούπολη για να καταλήξει στην Αθήνα, ενώ το προσωπικό ονειροπολεί ένα καλύτερο αύριο.

Τελικά αντί να μάθει αγγλικά στη Βαρβάρα, ο Δημήτρης περιπλέκεται σε όλο και πιο περίεργες καταστάσεις, βγάζει βόλτα τον σκύλο, βλέπει την παρέλαση από το μπαλκόνι, και τελικά ξεναγεί τον μέλλοντα γαμπρό στην Αθήνα. Οι συνεχείς αντιφάσεις, και το παράλογο της κατάστασης του προξενούν παραισθήσεις, ονειροπολεί τρυφερές σκηνές και ερωτικούς δεσμούς με τη μητέρα και την κόρη, και ταλαντεύεται ανάμεσα στα αισθήματα ενοχής και αδιεξόδου, για να αποφασίσει τελικά να απελευθερωθεί και να τους δώσει όλους τα παπούτσια στο χέρι. Η ταινία τελειώνει με έναν μακρύ αφελή μονόλογο της Βαρβάρας που χωρίς να το ξέρει ακούγεται στον δρόμο μέσα από το θυροτηλέφωνο.