★☆☆☆☆"We don't have secrets in this family," Themis Panou's repulsive pater familias - who bears an uncanny resemblance to Donald Pleasance - states in Alexandros Avranas' Miss Violence (2013), the baffling winner of several awards at last year's 70th Venice Film Festival. However, when it comes to families in this kind of drama, nothing could be further from the truth. It's Angeliki's (Chloe Bolota) eleventh birthday party and her family gathers to eat cake in their antiseptic, middle-class apartment. The eldest daughter has news that she's pregnant - which she whispers to her mother - and food is put on the table. However, Angeliki mounts the balcony railing while no one is looking and plunges to her death.
- 6/20/2014
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Deeply unnerving, yet it borders on a salacious exploitation of the everyday horrors it means to condemn. I’m “biast” (pro): nothing
I’m “biast” (con): nothing
(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)
In a sterile gray apartment in an unnamed Greek city, a family is celebrating a child’s birthday. After the cake for newly 11-year-old Angeliki (Chloe Bolota), the girl, still in her pretty white party dress, calmly walks out onto the balcony, climbs over the railing, and jumps to her death on the concrete many floors below. What would prompt a child to do such a thing? What would cause her family to react by hardly reacting at all? Screenwriter (with Kostas Peroulis) and director Alexandros Avranas only parsimoniously doles out information about those Angeliki has left behind, and in a way that leads our imaginations nowhere but in horrific directions. Why...
I’m “biast” (con): nothing
(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)
In a sterile gray apartment in an unnamed Greek city, a family is celebrating a child’s birthday. After the cake for newly 11-year-old Angeliki (Chloe Bolota), the girl, still in her pretty white party dress, calmly walks out onto the balcony, climbs over the railing, and jumps to her death on the concrete many floors below. What would prompt a child to do such a thing? What would cause her family to react by hardly reacting at all? Screenwriter (with Kostas Peroulis) and director Alexandros Avranas only parsimoniously doles out information about those Angeliki has left behind, and in a way that leads our imaginations nowhere but in horrific directions. Why...
- 6/20/2014
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
It's always exciting to see a nation not traditionally known for their cinematic output step up with a movement or wave of films and filmmakers that gain attention on the international scene. In recent years, some of the most exciting releases have come from directors based in Chile and South Korea, but just as notable have been the run of excellent cinema coming out of Greece. The wave began at Cannes in 2009 with Yorgos Lanthimos, "Dogtooth," and has continued with his follow-up "Alps" and Athina Rachel Tsangari's "Attenberg," among others. The latest to follow in their footsteps is Alexandros Avranas' "Miss Violence," and if our reaction when the film screened on the Lido yesterday is anything to go by, it's going to he just as acclaimed and successful as those pictures. The film opens with a stunning scene, as a family celebrate the 11th birthday of Angeliki (Chloe Bolota...
- 9/2/2013
- by Oliver Lyttelton
- The Playlist
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