BRIDES *

[NB. Reviewed together with THE WEEPING MEADOW, hence the opening 'graph.]

Well, here’s something you don’t see every day. Actually it’s the first time we see it, in the long and fertile history of the Film page – a double-bill of Greek films showing concurrently, demanding to be written about. These aren’t just the usual minor offerings for local consumption (not that we get many of those, either). One is the latest from Greece’s most famous director, an acknowledged master. The other is allegedly the most expensive Greek film ever made, a co-production with Martin Scorsese – and already a big hit in its native country.

 Taking the second film first, Brides will undoubtedly do well in Cyprus too – both because people are forever obsessed with the latest Greek fashions, and because it offers the same mix of melodrama and period flavour that worked for Politiki Kouzina. This is a better film than that stodgy hit, though it loses steam and sinks into melodrama. It also shows once again the Greek mania with Greek-ness, defining themselves against others.

 “Greek people die without blue,” says Niki, our austerely beautiful heroine, en route to Chicago (which at least has a lake, if not quite the Aegean). “In Greece, only men make jokes,” she adds for good measure, when American photographer Norman comments on her lack of levity. The film is set on a transatlantic voyage (echoes of Titanic) taking 700 mail-order brides from Greece to America, and part of the point is the clash between traditional and progressive. Norman has modern New World values, believing in the right of the individual to decide his (or her) fate; but Niki is Greek, beholden to all the old tyrants like Honour and Family. They fall in love – but their love can never be.

 As in the recent Girl With a Pearl Earring, love is treated glancingly in Brides, refracted through symbolic simulacra. In Girl, the symbol was painting: the couple couldn’t make love, so instead they made Art. In this case, the symbol is photography, a recurring motif. Norman has stopped taking photos, feeling disillusioned (his stuff was “too artistic” for the market), but is moved to start again by the brides’ expressive faces, especially Niki’s. She, for her part, initially refuses to be photographed, but gradually gives in to him – because she can never give in to her love for him. There’s also a nasty Russian on board (Steven Berkoff in an over-the-top performance); he peddles “spicy photographs” just as he peddles dirty love, renting out the Russian-born brides to whoever’s interested.

 He’s one of several patriarchs that crop up, sending the film into regular paroxysms of bad melodrama. There’s a few oppressive fathers early on, including an eye-rolling rural type who waves his arms and shouts “God sees everything!”; and there’s the hard-drinking Captain, who beats his teenage godson for daring to fall in love. Sometimes it feels like all men (but Norman) are bullies, and all women (but Niki) are helpless victims.

 Brides, as already mentioned, has American co-producers; Scorsese has loudly declared himself a fan of veteran director Pantelis Voulgaris (who’s been making films since the 60s). The film has a Hollywood smoothness – not a pejorative, at least in my book – and handsome production values. But the character dynamics, what you might call the emotional politics, are very black-and-white, and there may also be too many sub-plots: much is made, for instance, of Berkoff’s shabby treatment of the Russian girls, whom he defrauds as well as pimps – but the story leads nowhere. Even Niki and Norman are absent for a long stretch in the middle; it’s as though, having set up their mutual attraction and the obstacles to its consummation, the film can think of nothing more to say.

 The heartening thing about Brides is its cosmopolitan nature: Berkoff admittedly lets the side down, but British-born Damian Lewis (also excellent in Keane this year) gives a soulful performance, and the interplay of Greek and non-Greek feels easy and organic. The biggest problem with The Weeping Meadow, on the other hand... [etc etc]