John the Violent

Dimitris Dx5.0

Τι. Κάνει. Η. Μαρκετάκη. Ηθογραφικό πορτρέτο μιας ολόκληρης κοινωνίας, αστυνομικό cover story που αριστεύει στην αποτύπωση του εγκλήματος, δικαστικό δράμα που είναι ανατριχιαστικά ακριβές σε ό,τι και αν αγγίζει. Είναι θαύμα που αυτή η ταινία γυρίστηκε το 1973, είναι έγκλημα το ότι δεν την έχει δει περισσότερος κόσμος. Ανατριχίλες.

sakana14.0

The feature debut from writer-producer-director Tonia Marketaki, John the Violent is magnificently accomplished. Apart from the lengthy courtroom sequences that end the film, the great majority of it was shot without sound, and is used with the addition of only room tone or traffic noise. As a result, we see a great many conversations take place in pantomime, but none of it feels wrong or clunky. Marketaki's work here is spectacular, in both her ability to create an enormous impact with a tiny budget, and the way she has managed to make a fiercely feminist, political film while working under the thumb of a crumbling dictatorship (which had briefly imprisoned her, early in its regime).The film opens with the murder of a woman in the street, and begins to take shape through the vehicle of interview with witnesses, narratives which often lead into reenactments from a variety of perspectives. As we get to know the victim (Mika Flora as Eleni Chalkia), she is degraded on all fronts for not being a virgin, and treated as an object by everyone in her life, up to and including her nasty fiancé and her mother, who mourns Eleni, but also sees her death as an opportunity to perform loss and pain. The casual violence in Eleni's life is devastating to witness, as are the smiles men exchange as they hear about her sex life, and make assumptions about her morality as a result.Just as John the Violent seems to be settling into telling a story about the violence of simply existing in the world as a woman, however, its focus shifts to the title character: Manolis Logiadis as Ioannis Zachos. The victim of considerable childhood trauma and the child of a woman condemned for nymphomaniac and institutionalized as a result, Ioannis has reached the age of twenty as a badly damaged man. Largely impotent, he fantasizes about killing women and draws pictures of the imaginary creatures that kept him company in his childhood, sometimes dressing up like Dracula in order to menace the grandmother with whom he lives.Eventually, Ioannis confesses to killing Eleni, something for which there is little evidence. But, to Ioannis, the ability to kill denotes both masculinity and strength so, given the combination of his inability to get an erection with women and the fact that he has had a number of homosexual experiences, it makes sense that he would willingly claim the merit badge of "Murderer."Fascinatingly, Ioannis' trial turns into a public spectacle, with the young, handsome, articulate accused immediately gaining the support of both the general public and eager young women. (Luigi, anyone?) Ioannis is unbothered by the hubbub around him, and at times seems to confess that he didn't kill Eleni after all. But the trial exists largely as an opportunity for lawyers, judges, and psychologists to grandstand, something which leads to perhaps the most remarkable section of the film: members of the jury questioning the psychologists about their assumptions regarding things like compromise, and the line between alleged schizophrenia and political commitment based on closely held values.While I would have loved for all of the nearly three hours of the movie to have been devoted to the experiences of women, what Marketaki has done here is remarkable — John the Violent is very much worth the patience its running time requires.⏩ 52 Films by ♀: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | watchlist

Christina4.5

Watch it here with Subtitles