Review of Park

Most movies try to distract you from everyday life and troubles in the world. For that 90 minutes to 2 hours you will spend watching a film, you are meant to forget about your bills, the job you hate, the boss you hate even more, that annoying neighbor, traffic jams, the all-talk-no-trousers-politicians (mis)representing you, the never-ending war…you get the picture. Some directors use time-travelling sports cars, slick-talking mobsters, or great battles in space to allow the viewer to take a plunge into their fantasy. There are some directors who wish to do the opposite. Some movies are meant to remind today's desensitized and mentally numbed masses of the unspeakable (and unfortunately unspoken) horrors and tribulations that plague today's global society. Director Sofia Exarchou's Park is one of these. In her first feature film, Exarchou paints a Greece on a canvas of shortcomings and short-sightedness. The colors she uses are found in a group of coming-of-age youth who spend their mischievous days in Athens' now abandoned Olympic Village.