(1977)
4.5
Robert Firsching
With this surrealistic and violent allegory, Greek filmmaker Manoussos Manoussakis managed to capture all of the oppression, evil, and civil discontent of his country during the rule of the military junta. The film depicts its ruling class as immoral slaves to power, who sell out their diminishing beliefs and standards of conduct to gain increasingly more of that power, which they then use to put down the common people. Manoussakis and screenwriters Dimitris Poulikakos and Myrto Makri take a harsh -- although slightly more sympathetic -- view of the populace as well, showing them gambling and searching for hidden treasures to alleviate their plight, all the while growing more bitter toward the leaders who have oppressed them. The whole thing ends with a bloody uprising, as the people burn their tormentors alive in their homes, execute them mercilessly, and bring down the old order in favor of starting society afresh. Angry, anarchistic, and often extremely brutal, Arhontes is that rare combination of didacticism and brilliance which manages to sweep the viewer into its cause without ever really pausing to delineate the difference between the horrors of the past and its goals for the future. It is clearly flawed both intellectually and morally, but as an expression of pure exasperated rage, it has few equals in the Greek cinema. Minos Argyrakis stars with Theodoros Dovas and Dimitris Meletis.
Arhontes on AllMovie
Arhontes (1977)
