GREEK FILM FESTIVAL: Red Sky is what was once called a 'little film’ – essentially one location, a small cast, and character based, with a thumbnail plot. Here the action is driven by hefty emotions: jealousy, betrayal, and lust. Set in the Greek islands, it’s about two young blokes, Aris (Orpheeas Avgoustidis) and Stelios (Apostolos Totsikas), who set up a banana plantation in what is essentially a tourist spot. Shortly after that a young German woman, Cordoba (Pihla Viitala), on a backpacker jaunt, comes calling for a friend of Aris’ sister. Cordoba falls in love with the place and also falls in love. It’s not hard to quarrel with her instincts.
To call the place rapturously beautiful is an under-sell. The film’s truly gorgeous photography captures a sunlight that alights on faces and landscapes with little highlight strokes of red and gold. Then there’s the impossible blue of the ocean and the white rocks. No wonder none of the cast seem given over to complain about the accommodation on view here, which has all the rustic charm of an ancient ruin. Yet, none of this feels like a travelogue; the film gives up the charming illusion that all the filmmakers did was point and shoot.
Still, you get the feeling right from the start that this is a movie with more on its mind than some holiday-mood scenery and romance found a long way from home. Within minutes of the film’s start, the characters are discussing not their plans, or the nature of their sleep patterns, but Greek classics. (It happens to be Anabasis by Xenophon.) This dialogue finishes with a casual reference to raining fish. Attentive viewers may log this kind of thing as foreshadowing a plot turn; others may get the distinct hint that this is one movie that ain’t gonna end well for anyone and all.
Writer, director, producer Layia Yiourgou works in a system of images that seem incidental, but as the film develops you can’t help but miss their significance as symbols (or their roots in classic literature). When we first meet the film’s pair of main characters, we do not see their faces – they’re obscure shadows. Then there’s a hard cut and we see them, already ensconced in their island 'paradise’ (and their mutual passion project is thriving in a hot-house). In one or two shots we get how the boys love and trust one another; they have that ease and intimacy of communication that only comes with a deep trust.
Of course, the point of the movie is how all that changes when Cordoba enters the scene; 'paradise’ is lost. In synopsis, the film seems retrograde in its sexual politics, but the drama is actually working on something quite subtle and complex. Once Cordoba takes up with Stelios the trust between the boys starts to break. Cordoba is portrayed as decent, sincere but perhaps a little naïve. Yiourgou has this played out as an ironic commentary on fragile male egos. She suggests in no uncertain terms that there’s no reason why a woman should or ought to change the nature of the boys intimacy – it happens because they let it happen, which then questions just how deep the boys’ relationship ever was.
Perhaps the best thing about the film – apart from a cast of really fine performances and a script of some depth – is the way Yiourgou lets all this play out in a way that seems understated. When the repressed violence erupts, it’s truly hurtful. This isn’t really a movie about friends – it’s about a fear of intimacy. No one ever speaks up here, or lets out their true nature, until the damage is done.
