Chronicles of Modern Greece: An Interview with Pantelis Voulgaris

Author(s): Cleo Cacoulidis and Pantelis Voulgaris

Source: Cinéaste , 1996, Vol. 22, No. 2 (1996), pp. 34-36
Published by: Cineaste Publishers, Inc.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41687449

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 Chronicles of
Modern Greece:
An Interview with Pantelis Voulgaris
by Cleo CacouMdis

spective rank among Voulgaris's finest achievements. His first feature,

mid-career retrospective of films by Pantelis Voulgaris , New The Engagement of Anna, helped to usher in the New Greek Cinema,
Last mid-career Yorkers
Yorkershadfallta rarehadopportunity
when a retrospective
to see the workrareof the
one ofMuseum
the mostopportunity of of films Modern to see by the Pantelis Art work (MOMA) of Voulgaris one of hosted the , New most a a movement that included Theo Angelopoulos, Nikos Panayotopoulos,
accomplished directors of Greek cinema . The seven features and three and Pavios Tassios, among others . Voulgaris's film is a lyrical portrait
shorts screened provided convincing evidence that Voulgaris's work of a young woman from a poor village who works as a domestic for a
deserves more attention in the United States. None of his films have middle-class Athenian family. When her boss notices Anna is of marry-
been commercially released here. ing age, a date is arranged with a prospective bridegroom. The night
Voulgaris's films are informed by strong emotions , and a heartfelt out with the young man awakens in Anna feelings that she never
rendering of his characters and their deceptively simple stories. Deliber- knew - the pleasure of talk, a love of music. But her joy quickly turns to
ate and understated , Voulgaris's cinematic style is at once intimate and anger and despair when she realizes she is trapped in the realities of a
distant. His acute observations of small gestures in everyday life - a class society. This low-key study of a life deprived is ultimately a cri-
lover's glance, an unexpected encounter, a solitary figure in an empty tique of the decay and hypocrisy of the Greek bourgeoisie.
street - are intensely humanistic , yet his preference for long shots rather The director's second feature, Happy Day, is a powerful allegory of
than close-ups keeps them just beyond our reach. His work echoes with the relationship between oppressors and oppressed. Filmed on the
themes of loneliness, a longing for untasted freedoms, and the recogni- windswept island of Makronissos, an infamous prison camp during the
tion of time lost. Greek civil war, this stark drama transcends historical events and
Voulgaris is also a passionate portrayer of the often volatile social, reveals the danger and brutality of arbitrary and unchecked power.
historical, and political landscape of modern Greece, and he documents Voulgaris revisits Greece's turbulent political landscape in Stone
with sensitivity and lucidity the Years. Based in part on a true
struggle of ordinary citizens cop- story, the film chronicles a cou-
ing with extraordinary circum- ple's struggle to survive years of
stances. political persecution and impris-
Born in 1940, Voulgaris onment by a succession of right-
studied film at the Stavrakou wing governments which ruled
Film School in Athens, graduat- Greece from 1949 to 1974. This
ing in 1961. From 1961 to 1965 elegiac tale is extraordinary for
he worked as an assistant direc- its tenderness and sensitivity for
tor on over thirty films before a life stolen (see review in Orn-
making two neo-realist shorts, easte, Vol. XV, No. 1).
The Thief (1965) and Jimmy Less overtly political is Quiet
the Tiger (1966). These shorts Days of August, in which Voul-
were soon followed by a docu- garis explores the loneliness and
mentary, The Goat Dance isolation of urban life in Athens
(1971), a feature film, The En- during the month of August,
gagement of Anna (1972), and when almost everyone has gone
an experimental work inspired on vacation and only solitary
by the Greek composer Manos individuals remain. Gentle and
Hadjidakis's song cycle, The moving, the film more explicitly
Great Love Songs (1973). deals with the themes that are
In February 1974, Voulgaris implicit in all of Voulgaris's
was arrested by the military dic- work: alienation, love, the loss of
tatorship that had ruled Greece time, and the resilience of the
since 1967. He was sent to the human spirit.
island prison camp of Gyaros, I interviewed Pantelis Voul-
but was released when the dicta- garis in October 1995. Relaxed
torship fell in August of that and unassuming , Voulgaris gra-
year. Voulgaris has since made ciously shared his thoughts
another six feature films: Happy about his life and work. Thanks
Day (1976); Elefterios Venize- to Elly Petrides for her excellent
los (1980); Stone Years (1985); translation, and to Manos Efs-
The Striker with the No. 9 tratiadis, vice president of the
(1988); Quiet Days in August Greek Film Center, and Marinos
( 1991); and Acropole ( 1995). Demetriou and Simeon Hutner
A number of the feature films for their assistance.
Stavros Kalarouglou and Anna Vagena in The Engagement of Anna
presented at the MOMA retro-
(photo courtesy Museum of Modern Art). - Cleo Cacoulidis

34 CINEASTE

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Cineasta: Your work is best known for its portrayal of the fragility of marked my generation. Until 1974, one could not mention politics
the human condition , concentrating on the small gestures and intimate or specific political events because of censorship. The films that are
moments in daily life. In some ways , your work is reminiscent of Italian more openly political were made after the fall of the Junta. In other
neo-realist cinema . What are the ideas you wish to express in your films, I tried to portray the echoes of politics in everyday life.
work, and what kinds of filmmaking inspired your choices ? Cineasta: Your film Happy Day is actually shot on Makronissos, a
Pantelis Voulgaris: When I was young and studied film, what notorious island prison camp for political prisoners during the Greek
Greek cinema represented was cheap comedy or melodrama. There civil war. It is a very subtle film which focuses on the banality of evil.
were very few films that were different from these two general You yourself were imprisoned on the island of Gyaros during the
categories. When I first saw Italian films, they spoke to me of Greek military dictatorship. Is the film a reflection of your direct experience ?
daily life, and I thought, 'Why can't we make this sort of film Voulgaris: Happy Day is not my personal experience. The film was
ourselves?' The neo-realist Italian cinema was like a school for me. made in 1976 after the return to democracy. At that time, I felt that I
Greeks have a common culture with Italians, and I felt a relationship wasn't absolutely just, or fair, or sufficiently removed enough from
with the Italian cinema that I did not feel with American, French, or events to be able to portray my own experiences. This film is a result
British cinema, although I like these cinemas, too. of a great deal of research I did during the years of the dictatorship,
On the other hand, I enjoy watching ordinary people and observ-with most of the material for the film being based on Andreas
ing moments from everyday life, whether in the cinema, on the Frangas's book, The Famine. The only thing I added to the film from
train, or walking down the street. I belong to a large family, and dur- my personal experience of imprisonment on Gyaros is the portrayal
ing my childhood and teenage years we would all gather together of the threat of time: all the torment of time that doesn't go by,
and it would resemble a performance. I saw my large family as adoesn't pass, especially on days when there is no sun, so that you
company of actors because there were the jokers in the party, there could not even mark the time by the passage of the sun. These days
were the funny moments, the sad moments, etc. It was just like awere particularly sad and oppressive.
theater company; that's how I saw them. All of these experiences are Cineasta: The island's bleak landscape in Happy Day serves as the
related to my films protagonist of the
and how I envision film. The barren
them, it is what I try terrain echoes the
to express. desolation of the
Cineasta: Your work prisoners , and the
achieves an intimacy film's almost total
without using a lot of reliance on wide-
heavy-handed close- angle long shots
up shots or narrative perpetuates the feeling
conventions. Instead , of distance and
you rely on long shots solitude , creating an
and slow , deliberate eerie calmness.
camera movements. Voulgaris: Yes,
What are the reasons that's exactly right.
for your esthetic ap- When I was doing
proach ? my research on
Voulgaris: Each film concentration
presents its own camps, I discovered
esthetic problems. that a great number
For example, Happy of suicide attempts
Day poses totally or suicides took
different esthetic place in the camps
problems than The when the people in
charge,
Engagement of Anna.Eleni (Maria Martika), a political prisoner in Greece, gives birth while in prison in Stone Years. the jailers or
In Happy Day , the camp commanders,
choice to do long were not particularly
strict.
panning shots is related to the pace I wanted to set up in It
thewas during these calm periods in the camps tha
film.
On the other hand, in The Engagement of Anna, wherepeople the
would commit suicide. This is the atmosphere that I t
whole
story takes place on a Sunday afternoon, I felt that a hand-held
re-create in the film, this type of strange calm or lull period
camera style was more appropriate for creating a fluidity
people go mad.of
movement, and would help give the film an intimacy
Cineasta: Whatandwere some of the difficulties you and other film
faced working
immediacy. The esthetic element of a film always presents during the military dictatorship , and how did y
itself after
I finish the script. I never think of the esthetics of a film
around thebefore
problemI of censorship?
Voulgaris:
write the script. For me, each film is a different experience of After
variousquite a long interval of time, in which it was
esthetic properties. a wait-and-see period wondering whether or not we shoul
Cineasta: There is also a political dimension to yourfilms
workunder
, fromthethe
dictatorship, part of the company of filmmake
obvious references to Greek history in Happy Day and hadStone
already started
Years to making films prior to the dictatorship,
the more oblique expressions in The Engagement of Anna.
remained in Your
Greece, slowly began to try to make films that
appearindividual
method of filtering specific historical events through directly political. For example, Theo Angelop
Reconstruction
experiences makes your films both specific to Greece or The Engagement of Anna and other suc
and universal in
their portrayal of human suffering. would pass the censors because they were written in such a w
Voulgaris: Politics plays a very important rolethere
in the life
was noof
direct sign in the script that they concern
political
Greeks - our interest doesn't end with voting; we don't justsituation
cast our in Greece.
ballots and then forget about it. The newspapersCineaste:
in GreeceDidcover
you ever consider leaving Greece to avoid censorsh
Voulgaris:
Greek politics and international political situations No. It was not just about work. I felt that I s
extensively,
remain
which is an indication of how much Greeks are interested inin Greece and join my fellow countrymen in prese
politics,
negative
particularly people of my generation. I was born during refusal,
the war, andor even passive refusal, to accept the situation
the events that took place after WWII and the civil war have deeply
dictatorship. I left only for a brief period during the events

CINEASTE 35

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The city of Athens, deserted by vacationing residents during the summer, is the setting for Pantelis Voulgaris's Quiet Days in August.
Polytechnic because they were after me, but I came back again. I had
an opportunity to leave, I believe it was in 1968, when I received a
Ford Foundation scholarship to study in Los Angeles for two years,
but I turned it down because I felt it was more important to remain
in Greece.
Cineasta: One of the consistent themes in your work is the exploration
of modern Greek history , especially the extremely repressive years
during and after the civil war , and its effects on the ordinary citizen .
Voulgaris: Yes. I, and other filmmakers of my generation, felt that
we bore a special burden on our backs to depict this historical
material on film, which was also expressed in other art forms as well,
including poetry and literature. For us, it wasn't just dry political
events. These events were things that you experienced and lived; you
had friends or family who were directly involved, who suffered
torture either from the left or the right wing. You couldn't get a job
unless you had a clearance from the police, which meant that,
although the events of the civil war were long past, they still played a
direct role in your life.
For example, my name is Voulgaris, which in Greek means Bul-
garian, pronounced Bulgari. At that time, in the 1960s, Bulgaria was
a country with a different political system. Because of my name I
had very serious problems in the army. The humor demonstrated by
the officers toward me, saying things like, "Where are you from?,"
and "What does your name mean?," contained a subtle threat. I
might go so far as to say that I was afraid to mention my name. To
be associated with communism at that time was a very dangerous
thing.
Cineasta: Angelopoulos1 s Reconstruction and The Engagement of
Anna are among the first films to be credited with ushering in the New
Greek Cinema in the early 1970s . This new cinema turned away from
the sentimental melodramas and Hollywood imitations toward an
exploration of the reality of the Greek experience. How was this new
style received by audiences and critics ?
Voulgaris: 1 remember that both films did well at the box office and
were reviewed favorably. The statement made by my generation
36 CINEASTE
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came at the end of what we call the old commercial films, and by
that I mean films that imitated one another. I believe that if the
seven years of dictatorship hadn't come in between the years when
the first short films created by my generation started appearing in
1965, I think that the image of Greek cinema would be totally
different today.
Cineasta: What are your thoughts on the state of Greek cinema today,
and what are the difficulties of raising production monies for projects in
Greece? What about coproductions with other European countries ?
Voulgaris: We are talking about an art that is expensive and is
becoming even more expensive with the passing of time. So our
problem is the same one faced by American or European
filmmakers. The way I see it, Greek filmmakers are continuing to
make films that are interesting despite the financial burdens. In the
past few years, with special thanks to the Greek Film Center in
Athens, there has been an emphasis on promoting the work of
young filmmakers, and there are three or four remarkably talented
people who are now making their first and second feature films.
Cineasta: In discussions about Greek cinema there is the inevitable
reference to the work of Theo Angelopoulos , one of the few inter-
nationally known Greek filmmakers. Do you feel young Greek
filmmakers are often unfairly burdened with this comparison to
Angelopoulos ?
Voulgaris: It's true that the generation of filmmakers immediately
after Angelopoulos tried to imitate his style. But I think that the
younger filmmakers don't have this problem. [Panos] Kar-
kanevatos's film Borderline and [Sotiris] Goritsas's film From the
Snow do not remind one of Angelopoulos's films, nor do they try to
imitate him. It's just the fact that Angelopoulos is very well known
outside of Greece - this creates a climate where critics and audiences
expect that all filmmakers from Greece make films like him, or they
expect to see something that resembles his style. This can be
positive, but it is also negative because Greece is truly a small
country. For most of the international film festivals and film critics,
it seems, one filmmaker from Greece is enough. ■