Signs & Wonders

"Signs & Wonders" is the first Jonathan Nossiter movie that I've ever seen. There were two things that struck me about it besides the main plot. One was the awkward camerawork and editing. I wasn't sure whether or not it was supposed to have a naturalistic look. If so, then I guess that it added to the movie's style; if not, then it was distracting.

And the other thing. As the movie is set in Greece, there's ample discussion of the Regime of the Colonels. In case you're not familiar, it was the CIA-backed junta that seized power in 1967 and spent the next seven years torturing and assassinating political opponents, most infamously in the massacre of protesters in Athens Polytechnic Institute in 1973 (after which the group 17N named itself). Costa Gavras's "Z" - set in an unidentified country but was obviously supposed to be Greece - was targeted at the junta. In this movie, it gets noted that the US had backed the regime every step of the way. In fact, just the year before its release, Bill Clinton had formally apologized to Greece for the US's support of the junta. Even today the regime's effects linger, with Greece looking like a Third World country.

Anyway, it's an okay movie, not great. The cast members - Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling and Deborah Kara Unger - put on fine performances.