Directing from many perspectives
It didn’t really have to take a provocative issue – that of a Greek bus being hijacked by an Albanian immigrant – for film director Constantine Giannaris to spark controversy. His latest film, «Hostage,» which opens today at the 55th Berlin International Film Festival (and in Greece on March 4) handles with daring and gravity one of the many thorns of modern Greek society: immigrants and racism. The film is even more poignant as it is based on the true events of 1999 when Flamur Pisli drove a long-distance KTEL bus to Albania with fatal results. Giannaris is sure to provoke the ire of some, but the director is used to stirring passions. Always challenging, sometimes even aggressive, there are as many people who like him as those who don’t in the cinema world. Giannaris’s international career began with «3 Steps to Heaven,» screened at Cannes in 1995. His next feature, «From the Edge of the City» (1998) won him the Second State Quality Award in Thessaloniki, while «August 15» was selected for the international competition of the Berlinale in 2002. Below are extracts from a recent interview. Every one of your films is like trench warfare. Do you feel as though you are entering a war zone at the onset of every film? That you are gripped by anger and passion…? That is an interesting observation… I have to feel something body and soul to take it on. Because what I will go through for two years is a trial and I have to be very certain that I have the stuff to make it happen… The film, yes, is a war zone. Especially «Hostage,» which took its toll on me; long-term friendships and professional relationship broke up because certain people could not face the subject with the seriousness I wanted. They used to say, in a condescending manner, «Hey man, come on, you’re just making a film about an Albanian guy…» And I’m talking about progressive, educated people too. I could not feel the team spirit this time around. The subject of the film weighed heavily on me. It was a subject based on death. I was working the shoot very fast, gripped by a kind of madness. I wanted it to end because it was too painful. What angered you? The way a portion of Greek society views immigrants? Society’s view is the «set» in which the tragedy unfolds. Elian is a boy who, in his naive and irresponsible manner, breaks the code of society, one he represents himself, and he is cruelly punished. He decides to reinstate his masculinity and honor – those so-outdated terms – and arms himself in order to take back what he has lost. He finds himself hanging between two homelands: the home that can never really take him in and is his future, and the home that he himself has denied and has betrayed him. This is the home that kills him in the end. Elian represents all those people who, one night, pack all their stuff in a bag and leave for another country, which, by and large, will never accept them. Have you ever felt «foreign»? I feel foreign everywhere. When I was in England, as a student, even though I was in a privileged position, I realized after a time that multiculturalism was only skin-deep. Every society has a core that you cannot penetrate. This also has a lot to do with the family, the idea of the home. In Greece, even though no one can doubt that I am Greek, I often walk around the streets of Athens and feel weak at the knees. I feel dizzy, as if I were in a strange country, completely alone. What do you mean exactly? That it is a changing society? No, quite the opposite. I like the fact that it’s changing. Maybe it is not changing fast enough or is so deeply conservative in so many ways. It is a narrow-minded society and awkward in so many ways. There is a lack of spontaneity, inventiveness and tolerance, and on a daily basis, a verbal violence that can really be quite scary. All those people who appear on television to talk about immigrants or homosexuals don’t even try to keep up appearances. And the elite of television journalists, who are supposed to create a climate, they don’t keep up appearances either. I’m not saying that racism and xenophobia don’t exist in other countries – of course they do – but there is also a group of intellectuals who are united and who stand up to it. Even that doesn’t happen here. There is no ideology to say what is acceptable and what is not… Sacrifice In «Ajax» (Sophocles’ play, from which the film draws inspiration), the suicide is carried out like a ritual human sacrifice. Is that how Elian is led to his death? The hero, in a way, kills himself… Basically, yes. He doesn’t see it at first, but from the moment he reaches the border, he realizes the stakes are a lot higher and when he crosses into his motherland, he realizes that she is not playing games. The voices shouting at him from outside the bus are viscous… It is the first time we see him cowering, unarmed, behind the seats of the bus. That is when he realizes that he is headed for death… In the film, you explain his motives. Do you also justify his actions? No. Let’s be very clear on the distinction between the film and the ancient tragedy it is based on. I am not at all in favor of taking the law into your own hands. There must be a state and a state of justice. A system that ensures justice is delivered. I do not justify any act of terrorism, whatever it is… I think what happened in 1999 was a very traumatic experience for Greeks and for immigrants. Relations between the two have changed since then, the state changed. I wanted to explore that traumatic event: There is nothing more frightening to a Greek than to see a young, unmarried Albanian man strutting around with a gun and holding other Greeks hostage. But for the average Albanian, the one who is trying to build a home and settle down, there is also nothing more traumatic. Because it confirms all the cliches of the armed Albanian man shooting into the air, outside the law, without a state to answer to, destroying the image the average immigrant is trying so hard to build. The event was traumatic for both communities. It was a defining moment…
