Hivos Tiger Awards competition - IMPRESSIONS OF A DROWNED MAN by Kyros Papavassiliou

A vulnerable soul, a poet, lost in the modern world. Kyros Papavassiliou's film Impressions of a Drowned Man had its world premiere in the Hivos Tiger Awards competition of the 44th International Film Festival Rotterdam.
 
A man finds himself quite unexplainedly in the midst of the mishmash of modern world, not knowing who he is, or what he is, or where he is. Therefore, he looks at the world as a complete outsider much like he did in his times, at the start of the twentieth century, when he was at the fullest of his somewhat unfulfilled literary career. That man, we know from the start as we read an introduction of his prose of his description of his mindset hellbent on suicide, is one of the greatest and most influential Greek poets of all time - Kyros Katyotakis, regarded as having an attitude towards like at once disenchanted, melancholic and sad.
 
This playful recreation by Papavassiliou is the culmination of his work Impressions of a Drowned Man, which can superficially be seen as a modern noir - in many ways even as a deadpan comedy, like some of Kaurismaki's works. The film even has moments of surrealists, and takes twists and turns that recall the filmmaking style of David Lynch. Yet, the most charming and ultimately rewarding feature of the film is the way in which it represents the figure of the artist in general, not just the poet. It is he who leads the narrative, and we who delve upon his mysterious and metaphysical search for his identity. This is the thematic contrast that looks upon the way in which the artist looks upon life as an alien figure, but also how the concept of art was marginalised as much as it is now as it was then - Karyotakis committed suicide also because of his sensitive soul and his literary frustrations.
The film moves at a slow and restrained pace. Much attention is given to the pace and to the photography of darkened landscapes and equally as empty city scapes. Karyotakis, portrayed wonderfully and in a collected performance by the puppy eyed Theodoris Pentidis, jots casually and yet meaningfully his observations on the things around him, and then draws a line over them as if he didn't mean what he wrote, as if he were too alienated to think or liken himself to the estranged surrounding environment.
 
Yet, the aforementioned playful nature of Impressions of a Drowned Man is just as impressive. The playfulness is also revealed by the structure of the film, that allows meditative interludes in which Papavassiliou allows the poets words to shine through, minimalistically narrated whilst we, the viewers, are in a car, looking at desolate beaches and waterpoints where the drowining might have occurred, water itself being an element representative of so many human and organic things - the birth of human kind, the death of human kind. The haunting advice given by Karyotakis in the end is the driving element. Never attempt to suicide by drowining if you know how to swim. A haunting, dark ethos and a deep existentialist line that is bound to resound forcefully.