31/07/2009

The feature debut of Russian-born Greek director Anastas Charalampidis, Ecce Momo, is a startling and confounding work that juxtaposes apparently random images of St Petersburg with a stream-of-consciousness voice-over. It premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and also plays in the Panaroma section of the Era New Horizons Festival, currently underway.

Ecce Momo starts with the explanation that, following a suicide attempt, Morris Moshe (“Momo”) was clinically dead for over three minutes. Where did he go during that time, and why did he talk of Africa when he came back?

The narration, not only written but also spoken by the director himself, then suggests the film, if anything, is slander before ruminating on a variety of subjects including sex and the differences between men and women. In the process, the narrator is revealed to be casually homophobic, misogynist and, probably, severely depressed.

The grainy video images that are shown seem to have little bearing on the voice over but have a mesmerizing quality of their own as they offer apparently stolen moments from the lives of big-city inhabitants.

Charalampidis, who took part in the Résidence programme of the Cannes Film Festival in 2002, is clearly inspired by the narrative techniques of James Joyce’s Ulysses. The almost complete negation of any possible correlation between text and images will infuriate some viewers while it will delight others. As an experiment in audiovisual storytelling, it is certainly thought-provoking.

On top of directorial duties, multihypenate Charalampidis shot and edited the film himself and produced it through Africa Films, with support from the Greek Film Center.