Review of Topos (1985) by Edgar C — 04 Feb 2014

I rarely use the description of someone else as a part of my review. In this case, however, it is mandatory, given the excellence of Thessaloniki's perspective:

""A parable on space and time. A game of transformations. The course taken after a death, a second death. A woman gives birth and dies. At the moment of her death - a borderline moment, like the onset of sleep-her face scatters and takes on the aspects of those who are attending her death. A catabasis begins; images of deep memory come to the surface; and the body is fragmented by the clashes between those that inhabit it. It becomes a disturbed field. Her voice -the sole voice-is analysed into many voices and many roles. Mourning ends when the cycle of the catabasis ends and the body is free of the forms that lived inside it. The universe remains empty." -Thessaloniki International Film Festival".

From the Medieval period through the Renaissance, Antoinetta Angelidi's groundbreaking, forgotten and truly revolutionary experimental masterpiece of allegories and aesthetic compositions of immaculate equilibrium and still with a very feminine scope, won the Special Jury Prize, the Best Sound Track Award and the Hellenic Association of Film Critics Award at the Thessaloniki Film Festival of 1985, as well as participating in numerous film festivals around the world, including Locarno, Vancouver, Madrid, Montreal, Zurich, Osnabruck and Constantine.

Moving from artistic historical representations on women and intertwining them with abstract sequences, this metaphysical collision of perceptions, memoirs and varied perspectives flows like an improvisatory stream of consciousness with numerous encapsulated mysteries screaming loudly for somebody to unravel them. The ghastly episodic structure showcases vignettes with a theatrical essence, a supernatural aura and disturbing truths to confess that have been the cause of the burdens of women since the dawn of society. A desolate wasteland is the authentic witness of all mournings, while their "cries and whispers" echo in the air escaping the realm of oblivion and find perpetual resonance in the chorus of humanity's testaments.

Enthusiasts of the unmatched celluloid contribution of Parajanov, Sayat Nova (1968), and the true appreciators of poetry in cinema, Topos (aka Place) reaches the level of the artistic merits of Cocteau and shall find an enthralling place in the hearts of hardcore connoisseurs looking for extremely dense experiences. In my humble opinion, it can be placed among the best 200 movies of all times.

99/100.