Deformation

Deterioration of shape and size of solid bodies due to effect of forces / the act of deforming; distortion; disfigurement/ a change in the shape or dimensions of a body, resulting from stress; strain / distortion and alteration/ deterioration of the image due to diversion by lens.

“Evridiki ΒΑ 2037”, by Nikos Nikolaidis                 
Thursday 8/11

“History 52”, by Alexis Alexiou                                
Friday 9/11

Two films with a number in their title, perhaps indicating a desire for classification or filing. In the case of Nikolaidis, it is a female character who is filed away. In the case of Alexiou, it is the number of a memory, a story to be returned to memory. In both cases, the number indicates that the cases are part of a larger universe, of a world we never see entirely. It is a small file in a big library. Both films evolve within domestic interiors. Their subject is (mental or physical) confinement. Every angle of the house reflects the disfigurement of logic like a lens. While the Wizard of Oz teaches that the house stands for the shelter and the security of the intelligible, here it is pervaded by the suffocation of the absurd. The houses look like dysfunctional brains wherein strange couples, Evridiki and Orfeas, Iasonas and Penelope (another coincidence of mythological names for the characters), try to detect the limits of reality and the way out. However, reality has no limits, it is a body that gets deformed, deteriorated and altered. Its deformation is so intense, that it transforms the emergency exit into entrance. Evridiki’s door penetrates Iasonas’ house. These two could be a couple.