RKS Mindfulness: My Earthquake Experience Today

I am in Thessaloniki, Greece covering the 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival. I was in the midst of an online watch of a featured film at the festival and a swaying started. I initially thought it was my chair wobbling a bit but after a millisecond I knew it was an earthquake tremor. It was very powerful but gentle. How strange the evening before I started thinking about earthquakes which are no stranger to Thessaloniki. On my last trip to the Aegean Island of Samos I missed an earthquake off the coast by a day.

You may ask did I feel fear. No. I felt totally helpless like a bug trapped in setting amber. The tremor had me swaying in my chair feeling that perhaps my end had come. Excuse my ignorance about earthquake tremors as the last earthquake I experienced was in Toronto on the 65th floor late on a Friday afternoon closing a business transaction. I felt nothing at all.

I felt wobbly for a few minutes after having to hold onto the wall to keep from tumbling over. Minor shock set in afterwards. I started to shake for a few minutes in disbelief. It was a 5.2 Richter scale earthquake close to the island of Crete. There have been no reports of injuries or physical damage in Greece.

Processing my experience, I recall a passage from the Buddhist monk Thupten Jinpa in his book “A Fearless Heart” where he said everyone can feel sympathy but perhaps we should move to a more feeling compassion. That sounded “interesting” but today I have a great compassion for those who have been through an earthquake far more serious than the little blip I experienced. A life experience can teach far more than a book.

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “The Philosopher: I Have Something to Say”

Greek cinema is multi faceted, but with a strong satirical tradition frequently directed against the traditional pillars of Greek society; the church, politicians, the military and the bureaucracy.

In “The Philosopher” the satirical sword cuts a swath through intellectuals, philosophy, religion, television, academia, book publishers and film production.

It is a movie about movie production.

Stavros is a film professor and a failed filmmaker specializing in analyzing feature film scripts. Interest in his course is waning and he is given the boot. A new award-winning hot shot short film producer has usurped his importance if not relevance. Students are more interested in how to win film awards than anything deeper.

Stavros transitions to writing a book on philosophy but it amounts to a stream of gibberish. Is philosophy in its essence gibberish and sophisticated wordsmithing? It would seem so as all he spouts is unintelligible. Anytime some philosophical expression is used in the film it makes no sense and it is often used to confuse and intimidate people!

Stavros encounters no success in locating a willing publisher until Rigma Publishing expresses its interest but he will have to pay a large fee to have it distributed. Rigma also specializes in planning children’s birthday parties! Philosophy is no hot seller. Stavros’ book is a dud despite a high-profile celebrity launch where the celebrities are more interested in selling themselves than bolstering book sales. Copies of the book are sold at a promotional event but purchasers want celebrity autographs leaving Stavros alone in a corner. Rigma pockets the sale proceeds of the books and the revenue from the cash bar. Book publishers as scam artists?

In a memorable scene the “great philosopher” Stavros works on his manuscript on his balcony with a beautiful Athenian sunset eating his souvlaki while the junkman rolls through in the street below with his loudspeaker offering to remove junk. Does that include the manuscript Stavros is writing! Stavros and his daughter Daphne live in a filthy pigsty. Socrates he is not!

The only connection Stavros makes is with a Moldavian prostitute he frequents who happens to be a philosophy major bearing in mind a Moldavian degree in philosophy is worth two loaves of bread and a box of condoms.

Desperate Stavros considers an offer to be involved in a television production of a pet show as that is where the sponsorship is. The masses want drivel not philosophy but again philosophy in the film is nothing but drivel.

Then a miracle happens with his book suddenly being sold out but even that is a sham.

Throughout the film we see a film crew filming the film and the director, playing himself, spouts yet more philosophy. What can I say but promise me you will never read Hegel.

A major HOOT of a film.

By the way by hooker and sinker do you really think he has sold his book out. Where are the loaves of bread and box of condoms?

The director is Stratos Tzitzis.

RKS Film Rating 88/100.

RKS 2024 Film: The Toronto International Reel Asian Film Festival: “Song For No One”

Gene (Giullian Yao Gioiello) hosts an independent radio show in Brooklyn. Who knows who is listening but for certain there are two Asian women pedalling a stationary bike in the forest listening to him sing a song about grieving and about how he is not ready to grieve.

We watch Gene on the telephone applying for a scholarship for those who have experienced the loss of a parent or guardian with little or no life insurance. I best say no more other than this short is haunting, chilling and highly effective in its exploration of grief.

RKS 2024 Film Rating 94/100.

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Utopolis”: An Extreme Case of Migrant Bashing

Under international law Greece and all other countries having “asylum seekers” land on their shores must offer basic assistance until asylum proceedings have been completed. The cost simply can’t be deported away as deportation is not a legal option. The numbers are so staggering that Italy has outsourced migrant housing and administration to Albania!

Are the masses arriving in Greece truly refugees or are they economic migrants looking for work further north in Germany the land of milk and honey? My impression from visiting the site of a migrant camp on a Greek Aegean island is “asylum seekers” are young men looking for work in countries north of Greece and Greece is but a stepping stone due to many of its islands being proximate to the Turkish mainland and their flow assists Turkey in destabilizing Greece. Hence we are looking at an economic migrant more than a true refugee exodus.

Migrants landing in Greece receive an EU allowance, medical care and food much to the dismay of many Greeks economically struggling to make a living. There are extremes of dislike in Greece but there are moderates too.

In “Utopolis” Yiannis (Makis Papadimitriou) is a fiftyish struggling shop owner selling basic foodstuffs feeling the pain of the surge of organic food products that threaten his business. He despises migrants thinking they are thieves and a drain on the finances of Greece. Women in skimpy clothes are “asking for it.” Liberalism is a corruptive force for Yiannis.

Malls and influencers are the corruptors of Greek youth. He feels that he and decent Greeks are swept up in a wave of corrupting modernization. He is full of hatred and vitriol for all that runs contrary to his conservative if not totalitarian values.

Sam (Peter Okechkwu) is a hard-working African immigrant working at the mall construction project Utopolis. Supported by his manager he is encouraged to improve his Greek language skills and then be given more responsibility. He also works as a mechanic at a garage in the evening to supplement his income so he can pay for his education to further his life. His Russian immigrant friend Tibor (Goran Bogdan) also works at the garage.

Yiannis volunteers at a neighbourhood watch group to promote a safe neighbourhood and for 5 years has been patrolling the neighborhood. He is joined by a first timer on a nightly patrol, Sotiris (Andreas Konstantinou) who is clearly perturbed by Yiannis’ actions and ideological rants. He watches Yiannis harass and threaten a group of young immigrants peacefully talking on the streets who he admits are committing no wrong but must have it in their mind that “we” are watching them. Yiannis is looking for trouble more than attempting to prevent it.

Tibor leaves the garage promising to meet Sam later for a drink at a taverna. Yiannis and Sotiris stop for a coffee at a mobile canteen where Yiannis yet again asks owner Sofia for a date and she politely raises excuses. Sofia’s employee pleads with Yiannis to stop harassing Sofia. Just then Tibor appears arranging a date with Sofia. Yiannis overhears this and pulling out a gun from his glove compartment and in a rage hunts down this ‘illegal”. Sotiris had accidentally discovered the pistol and in disgust drove off.

What follows is pure hatred and a horrible gruesome tragedy where Tibor explains his past and how Greece offered him an escape and a chance to rebuild his life. Yiannis explains the core of his hatred. Both men have excuses for killing each other but fate horrifically intervenes.

A study in intolerance based on personal reasons and not logic. A glimpse at Greek minority extremism but moderation as well. There is no doubt Greece has a migrant issue and the futility of hatred as its solution.

Papadimitriou’s versatility as an exceptional actor is yet again on display. The theme of xenophobia is not new but here it is very clearly established with a masterful Greek stroke.

You can watch the trailer here https://www.filmfestival.gr/en/movie-tiff/movie/15848

The Director is Vladimir Subotic.

RKS 2024 Film Rating 87/100.

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “The River”: A Sloppy Effort!

“The River” is a co Italian, Greek and Kosovian production showcasing the endless talent of Makis Papadimitriou fittingly playing the character of Makis.

Makis is a contractor for a German firm Sky Autobahn building a segment of a showcase highway in Greece. For safety reasons Makis posts bird figures on soundproof panels lining the highway. A motley Mad Max homeless group of 10 live in shanties by the highway and for reasons largely contradictory they rip the bird figures off the dividers. Contradictory as they are enjoying the masses of dead birds hitting the panels crafting tasty sparrow dishes and liqueur from the carcasses. Makis complains to the nasty over stereotyped Germans managing the highway construction about the danger of removing the bird figures but profits and efficiency rule the roost over safety so Makis’ contract is terminated and due to poor writing of the screenplay he is then fired again later on in the movie. Sloppy.

The motley crew is hostile to Makis and a set up accident involving a ragged Maria (Stephania Sotiropolou) occurs with Makis being fleeced for increasing sums of money by the motely crew. A love interest emerges between Maria and Makis but is delayed by a mutual recognition they are from two different worlds. Makis believes in tasty Mad Chicken Nuggets, shopping malls and progress while Maria perceives his view of progress as a threat but she weakens (but does not capitulate) with her orgasmic nugget delight.

At this point the romcom motif gains in intensity punctuated by the philosophical discourse of a river being progress for Makis and a destructive force for Maria. Interesting and relevant. But just when there would be a satisfying development of the romcom the film becomes strangled by excessive philosophification threatening the direction of the film.

The fall of Makis into poverty is lacking in any sense of reality and Maria’s expulsion from her motely crew is puzzling. Why is all the money flowing on screen here USD as the Euro is the currency of Greece. Sloppy.

What could have been a romcom punctuated by just the right dose of intellectualization collapses into a boring nonsensical finish. Sloppy and contradictory at times the film is saved from a major disaster by the theosophical skills of Papadimitriou.

Numerous pokes at Germany and the Germanic character here. A Greek love hate relationship.

A superb job at costuming and make-up of the motely crew to the degree you feel the need for a hot shower just watching them.

Directed by Haris Raftogiannis.

Watch the trailer here https://www.filmfestival.gr/en/movie-tiff/movie/15925

RKS 2024 Film Rating 63/100.

RKS Travel: Checked Baggage Fees and Passenger Snickers

When the worst of COVID was over I took an Air Canada flight from Toronto’s Pearson Airport to Athens. While waiting at the gate an Air Canada passenger agent made an announcement that due to so much unchecked luggage on this sold out flight please volunteer to have your bags checked in. A roar of snickers, chortles and laughter was heard as who would risk having their baggage disappear as was so common at the time.

Airlines have created a swell of dissatisfaction with their nickel and dime strategy of charging for checked in baggage. It has amounted to a raw exposure of profit seeking and it has backfired from a customer perspective as every flight I take originating in North America has gate personnel for the airline looking for “volunteers”.

You see why pay for checked in baggage when you can bring it aboard and cram to overcapacity overhead bins. That cramming causes yet more customer dissatisfaction by passengers having nowhere to store their luggage.

Strange though for my in Europe flights there is a degree of airline ruthlessness in measuring carry on luggage. No desperate pleas are made for suckers…er I mean volunteers.

Airline customer service these days delights in the nickel and dime strategy. It is time it explodes in their face!

Airline passengers of the world unite!

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Greice”: A Study of a Pathological Liar?

“Greice” is a joint Portuguese Brazilian production wandering in a disjointed fashion bouncing off the walls as if the film had downed too many strong Brazilian coffees.

Factually it is described accurately in the film festival guide. Move beyond the factual description and that is where the trouble brews. If “Greice” was an attempt to make a “sophisticated and artistic film” it fails miserably. For large segments of the movie I query why is that they are there as they make no sense to me. At times the film attempts to right itself and succeeds but at other times it fails. A film of superficiality.

The initial thirty minutes temporally confuse the viewer but after that point some of grand initial confusion makes sense but only some.

Greice is a 21-year-old Brazilian woman attending a fine arts college in Lisbon who meets fellow student Alfonso. At a student party a painting at the faculty burns with Greice and Alfonso taking the heat for the damage and are expelled until an investigation is completed which complicates Greice’s student visa renewal so she ends up back in her Brazilian hometown to process her student visa application at the Portuguese consulate. The plot at that point furiously stumbles to and fro introducing characters for no apparent purpose.

At best I can say the film is a study of Greice as a pathological liar but making that the premise of the film may be too kind to it. I mean that weird dance scene at the conclusion of the film borders on the absurd in a film that is not absurdist.

I am becoming confused even trying to explain this movie.

The director and writer is Leonardo Mouramateus and stars Amandyra (a rather pretentious way of describing herself as she is not Madonna quite yet despite her talent).

RKS 2024 Film Rating 48/100.

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Honeymoon”: Staggering Oppressiveness

I will depart from my usual format by fast forwarding saying my reaction to the film was upsetting and caused me to pace back and forth after the film attempting to process it. It was slow moving and quite like watching paint dry but when it dried, I was caught beneath it like a bug in an amber coffin struggling to escape quite like Taras (Roman Lutskyi) and Olio (Ira Nishi).

There is not much to be gained by details here other than saying Taras and Olio are newly married and settling down after a small wedding party of artistic type Ukrainian friends who are aware there are evil Russian winds blowing their way.

The winds strike and the wedding bliss is sent in a fast forward time machine in relationship years. They crawl around like petrified bugs in their flat like in Kafka’s novel “Metamorphosis” hearing shelling and individual rifle shots more attributable to executions than combat.

Their story is one of an eternal wait and how their idyllic relationship faces and endures the harsh reality of Russian imperialism. It is painful and slow but hits you with a mighty wallop.

It is the Russian attack of Ukraine, but it could be anywhere that war strikes.

We have seen news footage of the Russian destruction of the Ukraine, but this film gives it reality news footage could never convey.

If I can make a literary analogy, it would be Nevil Shute’s 1957 novel “On The Beach”.

The director is Zhanna Ozirna.

RKS 2024 Film Rating 94/100.

RKS 2024 Wine:  The Black Sheep from Nico Lazaridi and “The Attack of the Giant Moussaka”

The Black Sheep is a blend of non-indigenous grapes to Greece, namely Syrah and Merlot. The grapes are from vineyards grown on the foothills of Mount Pangeon in Kavala.

Aroma: Think of black fruit particularly blackberry, black currant, cassis and black cherry enveloped in a gentle smoke.

Palate: At room temperature expect a dullard as with most red wines but often here in Greece, where the wine was sampled, restaurants will serve red wine at room temperature lending a bland character to it. This faux is equally encountered in Italy. After a slight chill the wine perks up exhibiting more of a Syrahistic character to it but it still maintains an affinity to cherry lushness Merlot offers a wine. Black currant is the leader of the pack. A spicy long finish with hints of pepper.

Personality: Although I am from non-indigenous grapes here in Greece I am not to be sneered at by those looking for “authentic” Greek wine.

Food and Movie Match: As I am currently in Greece attending the 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival is there no better movie to watch while quaffing this wine than “Attack of the Giant Moussaka” a ribald classic spoof and you will do no harm by consuming it with Moussaka! The acidity here in the wine is discrete and the wine can be sipped but like with most Euro wine it has been designed to be best consumed with food.

Cellarbility: No great benefit to ageing. Consume by 2025-year end.

Price: 12.79 Euros (Greece).

RKS 2024 Wine Rating: 90/100.

(Nico Lazaridi 2021 The Black Sheep, PGI Pangeon, Nico Lazaridi, Agora Drama, Greece, 750 mL,13.5%)

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Annual Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Swimming Home”

“Swimming Home” is a feature length film being a United Kingdom, Greece, Netherlands and Brazil production.

It’s opening music is ominous and haunting particularly reminding one of the swarms of buzzing flies over a severed pig’s head in “Lord of the Flies”. What is rotting in the film are spirits of human beings.

It is set in a villa on the coast of Greece with a spectacular vista. An apparent paradise but even in paradise there can be decomposition.

Josef (Christopher Abbot) is a poet. As a child his fleeing Bosnian parents left him in the woods and he was never to see them again. A traumatized and tortured man unable to write and perhaps even to live.

His wife Isabel (Mackenzie Davis) is a traumatized war correspondent witnessing so much terror and brutality her sole zone of comfort is returning to it.

Kitti (Ariane Labed) a green fingernailed self proclaimed botanist is found one day naked and floating in the villa’s swimming pool. She is invited to stay in the villa’s beach house.

Nina is the daughter of Josef and Isabel profoundly unhappy with the disturbed relationship of her parents. Laura (Nadine Labaki) is a long-time friend of Josef and Isabel.

Kitti is seemingly a free and easy character but become accustomed to her and she can be seen as an evil sexual and moralistic predator or perhaps a destructive liberator. Erotic and exotic but on both accounts exceedingly dangerous. The modern dance numbers in the film, seemingly incongruous are very much on point representing the poisonous character of Kitti. She is reminiscent of The Beast in “Lord of the Flies”.

A true Euro film brimming with symbolism and what an intellectual and delightful puzzle it presents to the viewer. What do you make of the “Passover” blood smear? Why does Kitti have an affinity for poisonous plants? And so forth and so on.

There is sophisticated savagery throughout the film. Could it be a “Lord of the Flies” without a Piggy. Just guess who Ralph is here!

A shocking ending that might rile even the most seasoned film buff.

The cast shines particularly Labed. Superb soundtrack by Coti K.

Directed by Christopher Abbot.

RKS 2024 Film Rating 94/100.