ART SUNDAY - ROUAULT 5

In 1939 Vollard was killed in an accident and the artist was thus released from his contract. It left behind it an important question: what was to happen to the great mass of unfinished work which was now in the possession of Vollard's heirs? In 1947 Rouault brought a suit against them to recover this material. Rouault had always been very concerned with the artist's rights over his own creation.

He succeeded perhaps better than he had hoped. He asked the courts for the return of 800 unfinished and unsigned paintings which had remained in Vollard's possession at the time of his death, and his right to them was eventually conceded. He only failed to recover those which had already been sold. In November 1948, to make his point quite clear, he ceremonially burned before witnesses 315 of the canvases he had recovered…

This is another religious painting of Rouault, this genre of painting being a favourite of his. “Christ and Five Apostles” of 1939.

ART SUNDAY - ROUAULT 4

Rouault produced several illustrations for books under the influence of Ambroise Vollard (the famous art dealer with whom Rouault signed a contract in 1917 and which was to provide him with freedom to work for many years. Rouault agreed to give Vollard everything he produced in return for a salary). Here is such an illustration, “Madame Louison” of 1935.

ART SUNDAY - ROUAULT 3

“Crucifixion” (1937-1939).

Many great artists have painted crucifixions and each manages to convey a depth of meaning that his or her art enables them to. Rouault’s crucifixion is formally symmetrical, simplified as a ruse stone carving, flat as a cutout, as confronting as a two-dimensional vitrail of a very old country church. The sober colours of the painting seem to foreshadow the fate of France in the second world war. A crucifixion seems the only apt theme in these dark and doom-laden days of approaching war…

ART SUNDAY - ROUAULT 2

“Legendary Landscape” (1936).

This is a great favourite of mine. The paint has been applied to the canvas with abandon and one can become immersed in its swirling creamy depths. The colours are dark and brooding, yet luminous and the sky is portentously red and yellow, with great swathes of green clouds, through which a sick yellow sun shines. The figures stand in the street like actors in a Greek tragedy and the houses look curiously homely and incongruous. This is a disquieting painting, one that stirs dark emotions and primeval passions.

ART SUNDAY - ROUAULT 1

“Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.” – Georges Sand

For Art Sunday today, Georges Rouault (French, 1871-1958). Although he was isolated amongst the artists of his time, George Rouault produced work which proved it was possible to be an independent yet wholly committed Modernist. His work is painterly and influenced by the impressionists and expressionists, but there is a primitive strength in his work that often reminds one of the monumental stained glass windows of the middle ages.
“The Old King” – 1937, one of his best known works.

MOZART FOR SATURDAY

“Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul” – Plato

Ah, Mozart! Truly, a genius, a magician weaving spells with his notes, melodies that enter our hearts and elevate our soul!

Here is a famous aria from an opera that was never finished, “Zaide” composed in 1780. Zaide falls in love with Gomatz, a slave, which strikes up jealousy and rage in the Sultan, who happens to also admire her. After capture she chooses a free life with Gomatz rather than a good life with the Sultan. Allazim encourages the sultan to consider Gomatz as a man, not as a slave. The tender soprano air, "Ruhe sanft, mein holdes Leben" is the only number that might be called moderately familiar, but it is a masterpiece, nevertheless.

If you have never heard this before, read the lyrics and then listen to how Mozart makes each and every word live and breathe emotion with his music…
Ruhe sanft, mein holdes Leben, schlafe, bis dein Glück erwacht! da, mein Bild will ich dir geben, schau, wie freundlich es dir lacht: Ihr süßen Träume, wiegt ihn ein, und lasset seinem Wunsch am Ende die wollustreichen Gegenstände zu reifer Wirklichkeit gedeihn.

Rest peacefully, sweet love of my life,
Sleep 'till you re-awake in happiness!
Here, I give you a picture of me,
See how lovingly it smiles at you;
Oh, let those sweet dreams cradle him,
And finally let
All sensual things he desires
Come to rich fruition.



Enjoy your weekend.

PPPPPPPPOPPPPPPP

“Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and celebrate the journey!” - Barbara Hoffman

Have you ever had a perfectly ordinary day, a boring, run-of-the-mill, non-red letter day suddenly surprise you? A common day that becomes a day worthy of celebration, a regular week day that transforms itself into a rare holiday? Well it happened for me today and I can be thankful for it. Suddenly, a reason to celebrate and the everyday becomes rare and wonderful. What better way to celebrate than with…

CHAMPAGNE PUNCH

Ingredients

• 1 large ripe pineapple
• 2 oranges
• 5 passionfruits
• 1 apple
• 1 punnet strawberries
• 6 tablespoonfuls icing sugar
• 1 cupful brandy
• 1 cupful cointreau
• 2 bottles of Champagne

Method
Peel and clean the pineapple, chopping into small cubes and put into a large bowl. Juice the oranges and add to the pineapple. Wash and hull the strawberries, leaving them to drain. Half them and add to the bowl. Peel the apple and chop finely into the bowl. Add the passionfruit pulp to the bowl and stir in the sugar until it is dissolved. Stir in the brandy and cointreau, put the bowl into the freezer until almost frozen solid. Break the fruit mixture into into chunks, put into a punch bowl and pour the chilled champagne over the frozen fruit mixture.

Now you may ask, what precipitated this celebratory mood? A tiny moment. A sweet nothing, a common ordinary experience, a surprise, a little trifle. We do not need much to make us stop in our tracks and reflect. We live, we enjoy this gift given us and each moment should be savoured and enjoyed. We do need to celebrate the happiness that friends and families bring into our lives, celebrate each good moment, and learn to deal with the bad ones.

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

“Love is much like a wild rose, beautiful and calm, but willing to draw blood in its defence.” - Mark Overby

The Victorian era was a strange time. On the one hand prudishness ruled the day and on the other secret scandals rocked the nation, with even people of quite high social standing and fame implicated. Piano legs were covered as they were considered to be too suggestive, while wild shows of half naked women were rife, and prostitution (of even young girls) was commonplace. The hypocrisy of Victorian society was perhaps not better exemplified by the royal family of England itself. The widowed queen Victoria in black and perpetually grieving for her husband Albert, had a secret lover in her servant John Brown. Her son, Albert Edawrd, Prince of Wales was womanizer and bon-viveur whose name was rarely out of scandal sheets.

Is it surprising then that such an age developed a highly intricate form of communication for lovers in the form of a “secret” floral code. This is the Victorian Language of Flowers. One could compose a letter by simply arranging blooms in a bouquet and sending it to his or her romantic interest. The flowers were then identified and their meaning divined with the aid of a dictionary and the letter pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Seeing it’s Valentine’s Day, here is the multitude of meanings that the rose can signify in the language of flowers:

Rose (red) - Love ; I love you
Rose (white) - Eternal Love; innocence; heavenly; secrecy and silence
Rose (pink) - Perfect happiness; please believe me
Rose (yellow) - Friendship; jealousy; try to care
Rose (black) - Death
Rose (red and white) - Together; unity
Rose (thornless) - Love at first sight
Rose (single, full bloom) - I love you; I still love you
Rose bud - Beauty and youth; a heart innocent of love
Rose bud (red) - Pure and lovely
Rose bud (white) - Girlhood
Rosebud (moss) - Confessions of love
Roses (bouquet of full bloom) - Gratitude
Roses (garland or crown of) - Beware of virtue; reward of merit; crown ; symbol of superior merit
Roses (musk cluster) - Charming
Rose (tea) - I'll always remember
Rose (cabbage) - Ambassador of love
Rose (Christmas) - Tranquilize my anxiety; anxiety
Rose (damask) - Brilliant complexion
Rose (dark crimson) - Mourning
Rose (hibiscus) - Delicate beauty
Rose leaf - You may hope

As well as fresh bouquets of the appropriate flowers, young women often painted the blooms in delicate watercolours or embroidered them in fine coloured silks, so as to offer their sentiments to their beloved in a more lasting form. Many such fine items of Victoriana are now worth lots of money, even though their true significance may be deciphered by the few.

Victoriana |vikˌtôrēˈanə| plural noun
Articles, esp. collectors' items, from the Victorian period.
• matters or attitudes relating to or characteristic of this period.
ORIGIN late 19th cent.: named after Queen Victoria of Great Britain (1819–1901).

HAPPY VALENTINES' DAY

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” - Aristotle

Seeing it’s Lovers’ Day Eve, I thought it appropriate to indulge in a love poem that is dedicated to all lovers. Those gentle souls who lie clasped in each other’s arms and share heartbeats, exchange souls and between whom silence is as eloquent as thousand words. My poem for you:

I Breathed your Soul

As our breaths were mingling, your head clasped to my breast,
I looked into your half-closed eyes and shared your dreams.
As I could feel your gentle breath move my heart yet closer,
I breathed your soul in, and my heart enclosed itself in yours.

As our hands entwined, and our lives lay coiled in perfect symmetry,
My words remained unsaid, for your mind was already filled with mine.
Your smile, my sun – my eyes your moon,
I breathed sweet air that you exhaled and drank your kisses.

If I were to think of you without my life, I’d think no more,
For without you, my life is truly without life.
And yet, even then I should not die,
For I have within my soul, your soul,
And you within your mind my mind;
But your heart carries within it mine
And a heartless life is life, but life is not.

ALMOND BLOSSOM

"Don't eat too many almonds; they add weight to the breasts."
- Colette

Almond blossom, Prunus amygdalis, is the birthday flower for this day. The Hebrew name for the tree is shakad = “awakening”, this in reference to the flowers that are borne before the leaves during late winter. It is the symbol of heedlessness, the flowers not heeding the winter weather that may damage them. The Greeks had a legend about this tree and concerns the Thracian queen, Phyllis. She was the wife of Demophon, one of the Greek kings who went to fight in the Trojan War. She died of grief when her husband failed to return from the War and the gods taking pity on her turned her into an almond tree. When at length Demophon returned, it was winter and when told of his wife’s fate, he embraced the bare tree that she had become. Phyllis was so overcome with joy that she brought forth a profusion of flowers. Virgil commented on the blooming of the almond with reference to the season ahead:

With many a bud, if flowering almonds bloom, And arch their gay festoons that breathe perfume, So shall thy harvest like profusion yield, And cloudless suns mature the fertile field.

A charming poem has been written about the blooming almond tree by Heinrich Heine:

New Spring (1)

Sitting underneath white branches

Far you hear winds are wailing;

Overhead you see the cloudbanks

Wrap themselves in misty veiling,

See how on bare field and forest

Cold and barren death is seizing;

Winter’s round you, winter’s in you,

And your very heart is freezing.

Suddenly white flakes come falling

Down on you; and vexed and soured

You suppose some tree has shaken

Over you a snowy shower.

But it is no snow that’s fallen,

Soon you see with joyful start –

Look, it’s fragrant almond blossoms

Come to ease and tease your heart.

What a thrilling piece of magic!

Winter’s turned to May for you,

Snow’s transmuted into blossoms,

And your heart’s in love anew.

Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

ART SUNDAY - SOUTINE 4

Soutine's portraits from the 1920s, distinguished by their subjects' twisted faces and distorted limbs and by the emphasis in each canvas on one brilliant colour, frequently red, are among his most expressive works.

Chaim Soutine: “Woman in Red./ La femme en rouge”, ca 1923-24. Oil on canvas. 91.4 x 63.5 cm. Private collection.

ART SUNDAY - SOUTINE 3

Modigliani introduced Soutine to the art dealer Leopold Zborowski, who enabled him to spend three years (1919–22) painting at Céret in the south of France. The feverish, visionary landscapes Soutine painted there marked the emergence of his mature style. Soutine spent most of the remainder of his life in Paris. He exhibited little during his lifetime and relentlessly reworked or destroyed old canvases.

Chaim Soutine. "Landscape at Cagnes (La Gaude)/Paysage de Cagnes (La Gaude)", ca 1923. Oil on canvas. 65.4 x 81.6 cm. Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, USA.

ART SUNDAY - SOUTINE 2

Soutine's life had changed radically after the American collector, Dr. Albert C. Barnes, bought many of his canvases in 1923. Having previously known poverty, Soutine now enjoyed a comfortable life and could stay at luxury hotels and spas. At Châtelguyon, Puy-de-Dôme, where he often went to take waters with his friends and patrons Marcellin and Madeline Castaing, he observed the staff and painted the well-known series of bellboys and waiters. Soutine seems to have felt a bond with these despised workers, victims of a rejection he himself had experienced. Through characteristic individuals, such as the room-service waiter of this painting, Soutine evoked the boundless mass of the oppressed.

Chaim Soutine
: "The Room-service Waiter", ca 1927
. Oil on canvas
87.0 x 66.0 cm. 
Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris

ART SUNDAY - SOUTINE 1

“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” - Henry Ward Beecher

Chaim Soutine (1893-1943) was born in Russia and brought up in a Lithuanian Jewish ghetto where he encountered community opposition for his propensity for drawing images, which contravened Talmudic law. He arrived in Paris in 1913, where he initially lived in desperate poverty. In 1915 he met Modigliani, with whom he developed a close friendship. His work was tenuously connected with the Parisian mainstream, but has a recognisable debt to Fauvism and Expressionism. Although his financial condition improved suddenly after 1923 through growing patronage, he continued to produce disturbing works in which extremely distorted images were painted with intensely heightened colours.

Chaim Soutine: “Servant Girl in Blue/La servante en bleu”, ca 1934. Oil on panel. 51.4 x 52.4 cm. Private collection.

SONG SATURDAY NOSTALGIA

"I don't like nostalgia unless it's mine." - Reed, Lou

The day was definitely autumnal today, the first hint of autumn, perhaps. The rain we had last night had cleaned the air, cooled the temperatures and the first lot of yellow leaves from the plane trees were littering the ground. We spent the whole day working in the garden and since a neighbour was ripping out some bricks, we went and rescued them from being thrown out. Good solid red bricks are always useful and they come in handy around the garden.

Listened to some old Spanish, French and Italian pop songs of the 60s and 70s today, so here is a sample of a few. Interesting how these songs have remained with us… I remember hearing them as a child while growing up and each is associated with a host of memories.

This is Jeanette singing “Porque te Vas?” a Spanish pop song composed in 1974 by Jose Luis Perales and used to good effect in the very good 1976 film “Cria Cuervos” with Geraldine Chaplin.



Here is Salvatore Adamo in the 1965 hit “La Notte” – a classic Italian pop song about a love affair gone sour. “Even if during the day I can make myself not think of you, at night I curse you… Night makes me go crazy.”



In the 60s and 70s, a beautiful young Egyptian woman called Dalidá took France by storm and sang all the hits of those times in French and Italian mainly. Here she is singing “Marina”, by Rocco Granata (1959):

PATÉ

“All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt!” – Charles Schulz

A busy day today and all sorts of things to do at work but also at home. Seeing I’m keeping this entry short as the bed beckons too invitingly, how about a nice convoluted recipe, just right for the weekend?

CHICKEN LIVER PATÉ

Ingredients
1 kg cleaned chicken livers (no hearts)
3 carrots
2 celery stalks (with leaves)
4 sprigs of parsley
4 sprigs of rosemary
10 peppercorns
225 g butter
2 onions finely minced
2 teaspoonfuls salt
2 teaspoonfuls dry mustard
1 teaspoonful Tabasco sauce
3 teaspoonfuls Worcestershire sauce
1/3 teaspoonful mace
1/3 teaspoonful nutmeg
1 pinch ground cloves
1/2 wine glassful of dry sherry (or brandy)

Method
Clean the chicken livers thoroughly, leaving no trace of membranes, veins or gall. Bring a saucepan of salted water to the boil and add the peeled, chopped up carrots, celery, parsley, rosemary and peppercorns. Boil for 10 minutes and then add the livers, cooking for a further 10-15 minutes, until the livers are cooked. Remove from the heat and drain.
Melt the butter and heat until it starts to spatter. Add the finely minced onions and stir through until golden brown. Add the livers and vegetables, stirring through thoroughly. Add the spices, Tabasco and mustard, stirring through thoroughly. Add the sherry and simmer for about 5 minutes.
Purée in a blender until the mixture is reduced to the consistency of a fine paste. Put the pâté in a serving dish and smooth the top, decorating with sliced stuffed olives and a gelatine glaze if desired. Chill for about 6 hours before serving. Serve with slices of crusty French bread.
Enjoy your weekend!

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR OF THE RAT!

"What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others." – Confucius

Happy Chinese New Year! This is the year of the Rat! The Chinese calendar is a lunisolar one and is called the Yin-Yang Li = “sun-moon calendar”. All Chinese and Vietnamese festivals are calculated according to this calendar, which is the longest chronological record in history, dating from 2600BC, when the Emperor Huang Ti introduced the first cycle of the zodiac. The Chinese Lunar Calendar is a yearly one, with the start of the lunar year being based on the cycles of the moon. Therefore, because of this cyclical dating, the beginning of the year can fall anywhere between late January and the middle of February. A complete cycle takes 60 years and is made up of five cycles of 12 years each. The calendar has twelve lunar months 29 or 30 days in length, with an extra month being inserted every 30 months in order to realign the lunar months with the solar year. The first month of the Chinese calendar begins on the second new moon after the Winter Solstice. The months are not named but are numbered. Thus the First Month corresponds with January/February of the Gregorian calendar.

The Chinese Lunar Calendar names each of the twelve years after an animal. Legend has it that the Lord Buddha summoned all the animals to come to him before he departed from earth. Only twelve came to bid him farewell and as a reward he named a year after each one in the order they arrived. The Chinese believe the animal ruling the year in which a person is born has a profound horoscopical influence on personality, saying: “This is the animal that hides in your heart”. The animals of the Chinese zodiac are: Rat (zi), Ox (chou), Tiger (yin), Rabbit (mao), Dragon (chen), Snake (si), Horse (wu), Ram (wei), Monkey (shen), Rooster (you), Dog (xu) and Boar (hai).

The celebration of the Chinese New Year takes place over 15 days. The first day of the Lunar New Year is "the welcoming of the gods of the heavens and earth". Many people abstain from meat on the first day of the new year because it is believed that this will ensure long and happy lives for them.

On the second day, the Chinese pray to their ancestors as well as to all the gods. They are extra kind to dogs and feed them well as it is believed that the second day is the birthday of all dogs.

The third and fourth days are for the sons-in-laws to pay respect to their parents-in-law.

The fifth day is called Po Woo. On that day people stay home to welcome the God of Wealth. No one visits families and friends on the fifth day because it will bring both parties bad luck.
On the sixth to the 10th day, the Chinese visit their relatives and friends freely. They also visit the temples to pray for good fortune and health.

The seventh day of the New Year is the day for farmers to display their produce. These farmers make a drink from seven types of vegetables to celebrate the occasion. The seventh day is also considered the birthday of human beings. Noodles are eaten to promote longevity and raw fish for success.

On the eighth day the Fujian people have another family reunion dinner, and at midnight they pray to Tian Gong, the God of Heaven.

The ninth day is to make offerings to the Jade Emperor.

The 10th through the 12th are days that friends and relatives should be invited for dinner. After so much rich food, on the 13th day you should have simple rice congee and mustard greens (choi sum) to cleanse the system.

The 14th day should be for preparations to celebrate the Lantern Festival, which is to be held on the 15th night.

calendar |ˈkaləndər| noun
A chart or series of pages showing the days, weeks, and months of a particular year, or giving particular seasonal information.
• A datebook.
• A system by which the beginning, length, and subdivisions of the year are fixed.
• A timetable of special days or events of a specified kind or involving a specified group: The college calendar.
• A list of people or events connected with particular dates, esp. canonized saints and cases for trial.
verb [ trans. ]
enter (something) in a calendar or timetable.
DERIVATIVES
calendarize |ˈkaləndəˌrīz| verb
calendric |kəˈlendrik| adjective
calendrical |kəˈlendrikəl| adjective
ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French calendier, from Latin kalendarium ‘account book,’ from Latin kalendae, calendae ‘first day of the month’ (when accounts were due and the order of days was proclaimed); related to Latin calare and Greek kalein ‘call, proclaim.’

THE STRENGTH OF SILENCE...

“Silence is a source of great strength.” – Lao Tzu

To those of you who have wished for a flood of words when arid, stony silence was all you got, my poem is dedicated today.

The Strength of Silence

Silence, says he, is golden,
Words are silvern
So speak not, for it’s more precious
That way, the speechless way;
For even in the account book of words,
His mind on profit.

Strong, silent type, he is,
Or so he would have you believe him be;
A man of few words, silvern – remember?
But more often the loud silence
Of hollow ringing as each gold ingot falls on begging ears:
Taciturnity now passes off for fortitude.

When evening fell, when night cut cold
When every fibre of your orphan soul
Was crying out for a flood of words,
Brazen, leaden, wooden even –
His silence (precious but empty, golden but hollow)
Met your expectancy.

And in the darkness, as your heart froze
His icy golden fortress of quiet
Chilled your being even more.
How strong, the silent type,
How motionless, immovable,
How unmoved, unmoving…

The strength of silence harder than rock,
Sharper than scalpel blade,
Colder than arctic tundra,
More efficient executioner than falling axe.
The strength of silence hides weakness,
Crippled emotion, cowardice, egoism.

PANCAKES, COLLOPS & ROSES

“Confessed faults are half-mended.” - Scottish Proverb

Shrovetide is the period just before Lent when people made their “shrifts”, or they were “shriven” i.e. made their confessions. Lent is a period of meditation, fasting, doing penance, preparing spiritually for Easter and giving money to charity. No weddings should be performed during Lent, couples usually waiting until Easter Sunday, a very popular day to celebrate a wedding in many countries. Traditionally, the 40-day period of Lent was also a time that new candidates for admission into the Christian faith prepared for their baptism, which occurred on Easter Sunday.

In England, Shrove Monday is also called Collop Monday, meaning the day on which the meat forbidden during Lent had to be consumed in the form of “collops” or “rashers”. Mutton collops or bacon collops were eaten on this day together with eggs. Merry making and the playing of practical jokes was also a custom on the Shrovetide days. Carnival as such was not celebrated in England.

Rosenmontag, or Rose Monday, is a German pre-Lenten tradition. On this day, friends exchange a single white rose, this explaining the name of the holiday. Rosenmontag is included in the week prior to Lent when Carnival is celebrated with parades, processions and masquerades. The Sunday before Rosenmontag and Shrove Tuesday are termed the “Three Mad Days” as this is when the carnival reaches its zenith. The main carnival procession is held on Rosenmontag (Shrove Monday) and the processions of Mainz and Cologne are by far the most famous and grand. In Cologne, the parade stretches for up to 7 km and is watched by 1.5 million people. The leading float is occupied by the Prince of the Carnival and following this are other floats, many coaches, dancers, giant dummies depicting well-known personalities in caricature. Brass bands follow on with riders on richly-caparisoned horses, costumed figures, clowns and girls who throw chocolates, carnations and mimosa blossom (flown in from the South of France) into the crowd.
Mardi Gras, or “Fat Tuesday”, or “Pancake Tuesday” are alternative names for Shrove Tuesday. In most Western churches this is the last day of the pre-Lenten non-fasting period. It was a day during which all remaining eggs, milk, butter and cheese in the house had to be consumed, hence the custom of making pancakes.

The term Lent is derived from the Anglo-Saxon lenctene, meaning the time when days lengthen. The Scottish term for Lent is “Fasterns” while the Gaelic and Welsh terms also allude to the period of fasting. In Latin the term carnesprivium is given to Lent and means “the time of abstinence from meat”. Before the fast, all foods forbidden during Lent had to be consumed and generally this was a time for merry-making and feasting. Carnival is derived from the Latin carnelevarium, meaning “taking away of meat”. Other sources link carnival with carnevale, literally, “goodbye to meat”. No eggs, milk, cheese, meat or fish are partaken during the period of fasting, a largely vegetarian diet being followed. The Roman Catholic faith has relaxed the requirements of Lenten fasting whereas the Greek Orthodox church still applies the same stringent requirements to the faithful.

Happy Mardi Gras! Have a good Lent. Reflect, meditate, pray…

A ROYAL TRAGEDY

“Civilisation is the process of setting man free from men.” - Ayn Rand

We watched an excellent Greek Movie by Nikos Grammatikos, at the weekend, called Ο Βασιλιάς - “The King” (2002). This is a tense, psychological thriller about what makes us tick as a “civilised” society and how civilised we really are in these days of high technology, equal opportunity and the supposed inalienable rights of the individual. The anti-hero of the film experiences first-hand ostracism by a small, tightly-knit community, simply because he chooses not to compromise and not to capitulate on what he sees as his right to his individuality and freedom of expression and action.

This film has elements of Greek tragedy. Tragedy in its primeval theatrical meaning was a situational drama in which the hero or heroine proceeded along a course of action even though they knew that the consequences would be personally devastating. This predetermined dance of destiny, the inescapable fatal denouement, the move towards the precipice, knowing full well that one would plunge down into the abyss, is what makes us squirm with discomfort when we watch a tragedy. We wish to cry out and warn the heroes of their impending doom, but no matter how shrilly we shriek, to their doom they march.

The anti-hero of the film is a man, just released from jail after detention involving drug use and trafficking. He has made a tough decision while in jail to make a fresh start and go straight. To this end he decides to move to his father’s village and live in a dilapidated house, which he restores. He is befriended by an unconventional policeman, but the rest of the village view him with suspicion and hate. He is the archetypal outsider, more detestable than even the migrant workers that the villagers take advantage of as labourers. His past intrudes when his girlfriend from Athens joins him, bringing with her the ghosts of his past who will upset the precarious equilibrium he has fought so hard to establish.

There are some powerful, gut-wrenching scenes in the film and some raw images may shock the observer reared on Hollywood-style, arcade-game violence. The film repels and attracts with equal force. The anti-hero evinces both aversion and sympathy. There is both a deep humanity and an inhuman savage mindlessness that moves the characters of this film. One to watch and ponder on.

The film is available on DVD and if you have access to it via an outlet that is more adventurous and exotic in its stock choices, it is worthwhile seeing. It is not a great movie – the cinematography and screenplay are not masterpieces of the art, however, the cast does a great job, the story is convincingly and poignantly evinced and the film raises important points about social behaviour, xenophobia, the “us and them” mentality.