🎥 A Trilogy: Life’s Labyrinths, Part I

Italian Film Festival + Greek Film Festival 2025

1. Nyhterinos ekfonitis | Athens Midnight Radio (2024) Greece, Directed by Renos Haralambidis
2. La grazia (2025) Italy, Directed by Paolo Sorrentino
3. Il tempo che ci vuole | The Time it Takes (2024) Italy | France, Directed by Francesca Comencini

The voyage back from the far side of a metaphoric world had taken almost a year through a fogged maze of days and hours undone. Throughout, I have been an impersonator of the small-spirited and bumbling adventurer Phileas Fogg (courtesy of a recent viewing of the comic and alarming meteoric talent of one David Tennant), and suffice to say, it was not only in name that we were equals. This year of quiet unassuming mourning where films were watched unnoticed, passed me by with a meandering haze of interceding narratives that neither yielded joy nor nostalgia. In fact, I had not noticed much but for a lack of appetite.

^{Björn Andrésen was only fifteen when he starred as Tadzio, the object of desire, in Visconti’s Death in Venice. Andrésen passed away recently on the 25 October 2025.}

The Italian Film Festival changed all that. Maybe it was time, too. I had selected more than seven films to be watched (managing only three in the end), I did, however, include the great Visconti’s Death in Venice (1971) in the same season – this other film, newly restored, was screening at the Ritz in Randwick and nicely complemented the three films. And ending this period of weekend film-going with a poetic, lyrical and infinitely beautiful film from the Greek Film Festival (first time attendee to this one), Athens Midnight Radio. And it is with this film – and the end of my chapter of disquiet – where I shall begin.

^{Writer director, Renos Haralambidis also stars in the title role as the midnight radio announcer in the film Athens Midnight Radio}

🎥 Nyhterinos ekfonitis| Athens Midnight Radio

Written and directed by Renos Haralambidis, Renos was also the main protagonist in the film, a lovelorn late night radio announcer who is about to celebrate his fiftieth birthday on air. This film is pretty much a one-hander and Haralambidis carries it off magnificently. Part recollection, part reflection, on the unrelenting onset of time; this is the announcer’s call into the darkness – for a return to love, to youth, and perhaps to the better days already missed, those long gone years. With this, he has cast a message in a bottle, and set it adrift in a vast ocean of the unknown. His one wish – to be reunited, on air, off air, into the distance of the night – with a love he’d let go a long time ago. He has given her the duration of his session to get back in contact, to call in if she happens to be listening. So this night is a story crafted in memories of his youth, where the city’s glorious ancient monuments, tokens of his lover’s meeting spots, and the music, a nostalgic signalling of lost days – many beautiful pieces, especially the repeated aria from The Pearl Fishers, Je Crois Entendre Encore (I Think I Hear Again), differently rendered each time. And at each hour, passed-time was marked through its announcement by an analogue tape recording (a hark back to ancient Hellenistic days where the hours of the night were announced via water clocks). 

Contributing to this film’s hypnotic quality is Haralambidis’ sonorous midnight voice, like a confessional, this internal monologue is sometimes punctuated by music, sometimes by callers into the radio station, and sometimes, most memorably, by the recordings of messages left by his lover on his answer phone. In this way, Haralambidis invites us into not only his personal history and desires but also identifies to us his current mood: as a man of nostalgia; we immediately understand that he is a collector of songs, for the messages have a musicality of their own.

^{All those moments, lost in time…when you were still as a statue, unmoved by the sight of your lover}

The characters, although unnamed (and probably because they are unnamed) made their love story infinitely relatable. The anonymity a city like Athens offers is depicted none more clearly than in the scenes of the midnight marathon runners preparing for their race, the warm up exercises were shown in close-ups: the back of heads (one with headphones in place), fragments of limbs, arms, hands, feet – as though preparing the viewer for those other fragments, sculptures of Greek gods, and monumental ruins like the ever-watchful Acropolis, that featured prominently throughout the film. Kosits Gikas’ cinematography paints the city in slow motion, the quiet city released from tourists and workers commands our eyes, paired with a soundtrack (provided by the radio announcer) demands our ears’ attention too. Even a remembered ‘performance’ from an isolated phone booth brought out a sense of yearning, nostalgic for a youth long gone, for a simpler way of life. 

This film is also Haralambidis’ love story to Athens. As the night paints its stars across the sky, the narrative illuminates and awakens the secrets long buried there. In what seems to be another life, the announcer was once an evzone, part of a light infantry that stands guard at monuments. In recalling its elaborate handover parade, which for me at least, has always been a curious mix of choreography, solemnity and discipline. This sentiment and tone matches perfectly the magnificent, but silent monuments standing sentinels across the city in sleep, where the vanished lover of his youth, a dancer, leaps and twirls across these landscapes. The most touching scenes were those where she had danced in front of him.

^{Eleftheria Stamou, dancing at Syntagma Square in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier}

First at Syntagma Square in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier where he was stationed, although at the time,  even her beautiful grand jetés were unable to stir his heart. Marking the place where their love story began to unravel. And now, in a dreamscape, and Haralambidis with eyes closed, reclined against the sublime fragments from the East Pediment of the Parthenon, were of Demeter (whose skirts he leant against) and Persephone, and Dionysus nearby, all in a kind of limbo and frozen in action. These replica sculptures located at the Acropolis metro station in Athens are mute, as though their stories, currently voiceless, are asking to be discovered – slow mirage-like sequences where everyday workers pass by these works and the sleeping Haralambidis unseen. Whilst his lover, a ballet dancer, portrayed wonderfully by Eleftheria Stamou, a dancer herself with Greek National Opera Ballet, is as alluring and mysterious as these ancient gods, and as graceful as Athens, her city, especially when dawn breaks.

^{A pas de deux across time and distance}

Does he get to reunite with her? This dream lover? You’ll have to watch the film to find out.

Perhaps the mood and meaning of this film is best described by Haralambidis in his own words: “I always appreciate Athens as a city where you can be in the arms of eternity as trains go by and also amongst the crowds, which come and go, as if indifferent to these surroundings. And it is in the underground of the city’s metro, at the Acropolis metro station where the exhibit of the replicas of the statues of the eastern gable end of the Parthenon, that I discovered the stars for my new film Athens Midnight Radio.”

This quote is from a beautiful short article on the website of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles where Haralambidis speaks eloquently about his film and Athens. 

The Greek Film Festival ran in October in Australia this year.

The Italian Film Festival ran in September and October in Australia this year.

Look out for the next instalment, on La Grazia by director Paolo Sorrentino.

^{Toni Servillo in Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grazia}

 

Filmic Postcard: Janice Tong Reporting from the 33rd Alliance Française French Film Festival 2022 – Everything Went Fine (Part 1)

This year’s selection at the Alliance Française French Film Festival shows that we’re back in fine form. Covid disruptions didn’t dampen the production of the wide range of films, nor did it still the production of good strong characterisations that I’ve come to love in French films throughout the years. 

A touching portrayal of father/daughter relationship.

Just like last year, I curated this year’s festival viewing order by kicking it off with a François Ozon film (I do like a temporal echo or a doubling where possible). But unlike his last year’s upbeat and romantic Été 85, Summer of 85 (2020) where the summer sun and youthfulness harked back to my own childhood back in the late 80s, of first loves and the freedom of being a teenager. This year’s film, Tout s’est bien passé, Everything Went Fine (2021) is a completely different affair. It deals with the difficult end of life choice – and examines the nature of such a request, the complexities and the many emotions a family has to deal with when being asked to assist in ending the life of someone they love. 

Emmanuèle Bernheim (Sophie Marceau) in the film’s opening scene.

The story opens with Emmanuèle Bernheim (Sophie Marceau) sitting in her study in front of her laptop; the room is bright and she’s surrounded by books. She receives a phone call and exits her apartment in a hurry, a little comical when she had to dash back inside to put on her contact lenses. As an audience, we still do not know why she’s had to rush out, except that in most narratives, we expect not very good news to follow. Her father André Bernheim has just suffered a stroke, and she meets her sister Pascale (Géraldine Pailhas) outside the hospital where she has been waiting. They rush by their father’s side once his tests have been done and immediately, realisation hits, the effects of the stroke is plainly drawn on their father’s face, you can immediately see that he’s paralysed to some degree. 

The moment of realisation…

The inimitable André Dussollier gives his all as André Bernheim; where the actor has become completely transparent, and you only see Bernheim, without arteface. I thought quite deeply about his role after watching the film, and despite the common reaction of ‘he must have found it difficult to play such a role’, I thought quite the opposite. Perhaps it’s because as you get older, your approach to death changes. Your acceptance that it is inevitable for all of us to die, and that you should not be fearful of your own death. Dussollier’s uncompromising performance meant that you get to experience the human in all its facets and conducts when you come face-to-face with this inevitability. Even paralysed by the stroke and facing the end, he is not without desire or passion; so that at the ripe old age of 85, he is still flirting with good-looking young men, and his spirits rise when doing so, you can only imagine his younger self; in the film, he takes a likely to the young man who was assisting him with physical therapy, and again with the ambulance drivers, or with his favourite waiter Thierry at the swanky restaurant Le Voltaire; basically, with any young man who catches his eye when his spirits were up.

André Dussollier gives his all as André Bernheim.

As the film progresses, although Bernheim’s mobility and strength was improving: being able to take solid food, have visitors call in, can sit up by himself and even allowing his violent ex-lover (Daniel Mesguich) visit him despite his agitation after the visit. Bernheim’s whim of ‘wanting to end it all’ becomes not so much a whim, but a persistent demand that begins to wear down the recipients of this request. But moreover, this demand requires action and careful planning from his daughters for the wish to be fulfilled at all. 

For his daughters, Manue and Pascale, dealing with their father’s plaintive request is a different matter altogether; perhaps because Bernheim had asked Manue only and not Pascale, (he talked to his nurses and doctors about it too). Reflection on this request by Manue was quietly thought through a series of memory fragments: of the father/daughter relationship with her younger self. Pascale’s reception of this news was more reactive and she oscillates from feeling one way and then the other. 

At its core, the film is sobre, tender and unflinching in its exploration of the human psyche and family dynamics. To be able to decipher whether their father meant it ‘for real’ is not the same as their ability or willingness to accept his request; and yet another, again, to take on the task at hand of arranging for his assisted suicide. 

The wonderful Hanna Schygulla in the background.

The word euthanasia comes from the Greek, with the word eu meaning ‘good’ and thanatos meaning ‘death’. The ‘good death’, can this be possible? The moment when Bernheim finally got his ‘wish’ confirmed following a meeting with the visiting Swiss woman (the wonderful Hanna Schygulla) who would later be overseeing his final act, he was elated. After finding out how much this all costs, Bernheim’s question of ‘what do poor people do?’ and his daughter’s answer ‘they have to wait for death to come’ is a stark reminder of what it means to have a choice, and there is a very fine line between assisted euthanasia and choosing death. The film’s continual affirmation of ‘choosing life’ is also a good counterpoint here, as for Bernheim and finally his daughters, his decision and their acceptance of it, is not as black and white as about choosing death or choosing life, but it is about choosing to die with dignity. 

This ‘grey’ area has a tremendously beautiful response within the film, from Bernheim’s estranged wife, Claude (Charlotte Rampling’s gave her a flinty and detached character). In a flashback, Manue was watching Claude make one of her sculptures, and asked of her mother ‘why don’t you ever use colours in your sculptures?’ and Claude’s reply was ‘grey is a colour, there are many colours in grey’. And perhaps this is what Ozon has set out to show us; that choosing to end your life with dignity doesn’t diminish the ability or colour of the departing person. Instead, it gives the opportunity to say farewell to loved ones, to put affairs in order, to have the comfort of family around (although Bernheim ‘tricked’ his cousins to come over from the US) and to have a last meal, for Bernheim this was at Le Voltaire and I can certainly understand why. 

One of Claude de Soria‘s sculptural works with her trademark material: cement.

I had not realised that this film was based on a true story until the dedication at the end, it’s from a book by Emmanuèle Bernheim, who was the daughter of art collector André Bernheim and sculptress Claude de Soria (you can take a look at her sculptures here). ‘Manue’ as she was called in the film passed away in 2017, and her book Tout s’est bien passé was published by Gallimard in 2013. She wrote a number of novels and was a collaborator with Ozon in developing scenarios for two of his earlier films, Swimming Pool (2003) and 5×2 (2004). She had also adapted her novel Vendredi soir into a screenplay for Claire Denis’ film of the same name in 2002. I still remember how much I loved that film when I saw it at the French Film Festival now twenty years ago; the grainy feel of the night, glimpses of the sky and that mad long drive in reverse gear down a one-way street. 

In some ways, Emmanuèle Bernheim’s connection with Ozon must have been his impetus to bring her novel to life and to tackle this difficult subject. His dedication to her at the end of the film was, to me at least, a very touching personal note. And the inclusion of that detail at the start of the film – of having Emmanuèle come back inside the apartment to put on her contact lenses before rushing to the hospital – makes this story a personal one, rather than reading it only symbolically: of the need to see things clearly.

Behind the scenes at Everything Went Fine: Claude’s studio.

The phrase ‘everything went fine’ are the words Schygulla’s character said to Manue over the phone. They are not so much words of comfort, but they describe a state of affairs in a practical manner that is to be understood as the greatest care had been given.

There are so many touching and funny moments in this film. Bernheim’s love of music (he played the piano and used to accompany his grandson), especially Brahms, meant that he had to ask Manue to reschedule his appointment in Switzerland, by a few days, as though it was any other appointment, in order to attend his grandson’s recital. His inability to keep a secret; as euthanasia is illegal in France, by carelessly telling everyone his plans, it was as though he was going out of his way to sabotage what had been difficult to orchestrate physically and emotionally. Marceau, who I’ve really not seen very much of in recent years is beautiful and graceful as Manue, and Éric Caravaca who was in Ozon’s By the Grace of God (2018) is wonderful as her lover / partner.

The sisters, intertwined in spirit and thoughts.

I also loved that the reference to a retrospective at the Cinémathèque Française on Luis Buñuel, which I’m assuming was a real event. Manue’s lover is none other than Serge Toubiana who was the director of the Cinémathèque Française between 2003 and 2016 and editor in chief of the Cahiers du Cinéma for many years, his involvement started in 1974 and formerly finished in 2000. He is currently serving his second term as president of UniFrance. There’s a very beautiful article that Toubiana wrote as a farewell to his friend Claudine Paquot in Senses of Cinema 2011.

The Alliance Française French Film Festival is currently showing in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Perth from now to the 6th April across a number of theatres. Hobart from 9th to 20th March, Brisbane from 16th March to 13th April, and a little later in Byron Bay, 30th March to 13th April, Victor Harbour 4th to 11th April and Adelaide from 24th March to 26th April.

From left: André Dussollier, Sophie Marceau, François Ozon and Géraldine Pailhas at the 74th Cannes Film Festival in 2021 where this film was nominated for the Palme d’Or