Even though this a very simple film in its direction, its main advantage - and the reason that I loved it - is that Goritsas dares to touch on subjects that most current Greek directors avoid like a plague.
Until a few years ago most, leftist, Greek directors still wandered in (and wondered about) the period of the Greek Civil war and its aftermath, almost half a century ago. Then, came a new breed of directors producing mainly "dreamy", fairy-tale like films of the kind that would make you either escape from the real world or bring back memories of the, supposedly beautiful, past (and some of these films are actually quite nice, e.g. Peppermint). Then, came Goritsas!
Both his previous film (Balkanisateur) and this one deal with current problems of Greek society. The superficial, unethical, know-it-all but actually uneducated type of person portrayed in this film as the main character is just an example. Every single little detail in the script screams with REALITY! Goritsas is certainly not out to pet his audience.
The crooked politician, the University professor that spends most of his time jogging or traveling in Brussels to get E.U. funds, the "English teacher" that speaks English worse than her students, the fallacy about the "naive" Europeans (who still make a bunch of ironic comments right in the face of their Greek hosts who fail to understand them), the slight critique against the prevalent anti-americanism but also against the European beaurocracy, even the fact that the E.U. controllers are portrayed as nothing more than human beings are all elements whose presence amounts to a small "revolution" for Greek film-making standards. Therefore, a 9/10 from me. No wonder it did not get the reception it deserved by Greek critics! If you can flip-flop from Greek to English and vice-versa you will greatly enjoy this (or be greatly offended:) ). I'd be curious to read how non-Greeks or non-native speakers of Greek relate to this film.
Either way, you can almost watch it as a documentary!
