‘Meat’: Thessaloniki Review

Dir: Dimitris Nakos. Greece. 2024. 104mins

Poisonous households could also be a story as outdated as time, however author/director Dimitris Nakos spices his debut with the small city hearsay mill in his fashionable Greek tragedy. Nakos units a assured tempo, though his want to create depth with excitable handheld camerawork and excessive quantity interactions is typically counterproductive.

Cinematographer Giorgos Valsamis’ work is so hyperactive that it dangers producing movement illness

Meat featured in Thessaloniki Movie Pageant’s Agora works in progress part final 12 months and now joins its Worldwide Competitors after making its world premiere in Toronto. It is going to be distributed in Greece by Feelgood Leisure and, whereas the acquainted themes may make it a harder promote to distributors elsewhere, it has loads to commend it to additional festivals. 

Center-aged Takis (Akyllas Karazisis) is within the temper to rejoice. He’s about to reopen his butcher’s store after two years of closure and never even a shouting match along with his ex-con neighbour (Antonis Iordanou) over an extended operating land dispute goes to take the shine off the second. Takis and his spouse Eleni (Maria Kallimani) have loads of causes to be assured about his store’s opening. Issues usually go Takis’ method, not least as a result of he is aware of find out how to grease palms, like these of native cop Giorgos (Giorgos Symeonidis), so that folks look the opposite method in terms of the unlawful slaughterhouse he has on his land. 

The butcher can also be not a person who suffers fools gladly. That features his son Pavlos (Pavlos Iordanopoulos), who he views as largely inept – particularly compared to the onerous working and equally aged Christos (Kostas Nikouli), an Albanian who has lengthy come to be seen as a part of the household.

When, on opening evening, the state of affairs flares up on the cottage the place Christos lives, against the law is dedicated that can rot the household from the within out. Nakos has a knack for household dynamics, permitting Pavlos’ broody glowering in response to Takis converse louder than any argument. His father’s opprobrium serves solely to bolster his mom’s protecting instincts, whereas additional hints of arrested improvement are recommended by Pavlos’s bed room, the place footballers are nonetheless kicking about on the curtains from his childhood.

Christos is relatively alone, his mom only a voice over the phone, which is simply one of many explanation why he feels indebted to Takis and his household. For him, this small city nonetheless represents alternative, whereas his girlfriend (Natalia Swift) can’t wait to go away for the town. Christos’ gratitude, nonetheless, might not be sufficient, and the query of whether or not blood is thicker than water hangs over the motion because the crime turns into more and more troublesome to cowl up. 

Nakos steadily reveals the household’s place inside the group, together with the ingrained prejudice in the direction of Christos and the way in which by which whispers of guilt can journey quicker than the wind. Takis, who as soon as seen the group as docile and simply herded sheep, now realises it holds loads of wolves. This isn’t only a query of energy, however of cash as a corrupting pressure.

The strategy of utilizing a handheld digicam so as to add kinetic vitality to the household’s arguments is efficient, however cinematographer Giorgos Valsamis’ work is so hyperactive that it dangers producing movement illness. With the digicam being frequently skittish, Nakos additionally leaves himself with nowhere additional to go when he desires to amp issues up. Thankfully, the highly effective rating from Konstantinos Pistiolis, which employs folks music devices together with bagpipes and the lavta, delivers depth in additional palatable doses. And when the digicam does take a breather, the actors ship loads of meaty performances; notably Nikouli and Iordanopoulos, who carry a turbulent mixture of friendship and rivalry to the boys’s relationship and stay unpredictable to the final.