"Tale 52" starts with silent pasta preparation, leading up to a dinner party. Although set in 2010, the women wear ridiculously heavy, late 1970s make-up. I guess nobody is safe from retro fads, least of all the people of the future. All of which is beside the point. Iasonas (Yorgos Kakanakis) goes through an ordeal so painful, so profound and so inexplicable you can't help feeling for him. Not only does he suffer from hellish headaches, a rotting apartment and a cheating girlfriend. At the heart of his misery lies the suspicion that he is his own worst enemy. Either he's going crazy, or something is seriously wrong with the world around him. The fact that his table lamp seems to be changing colors over night is the least of his problems. There are other characters in the story, namely his girlfriend Penelope, but essentially this is a one-person chamber play set in Jason's mind. Well-written, minutely directed, and superbly acted, "Tale 52" is anything but a polished mainstream movie and evokes memories of some of the finest features ever made: Darren Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream", Alejandro Amenábar's "Open Your Eyes", Michel Gondry's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", Julio Medem's "Sex and Lucia", Paul Verhoeven's "Total Recall". If their stories spoke to you, chances are you need to hear "Tale 52". Says Iasonas: "It's the story of someone telling a story that is very similar to his own."
