'Cloudy Sunday', the 2015 film by Greek director Manousos Manousakis is one of those docu-dramas that remain in the memory of the audiences as references for the historical periods in which the stories take place, although they are conceived as fiction films. To make such a film, one needs a solid and credible documentation about that era, combined with a story and heroes that generate emotion and identification for contemporary viewers and those of the future. This is the case of this film that places its action in the Thessaloniki of 1942-1943, a period in which the city witnessed one of the most tragic episodes of the Holocaust, an episode in which the entire Jewish community in the city was deported to the death camps. Most of the deportees were sent to Auschwitz and only a few survived. This tragic event that ended the 450-year history of the Jews of Thessaloniki is described by co-writer and director Manousakis through a beautiful and tragic love story.
The title of the film in Greek is 'Ouzeri Tsitsanis', meaning 'Tsitsanis's Pub' (where one drinks ). Vassillis Tsitsanis was a famous bouzouki composer and singer, especially in the rebetiko style, and indeed spent the war in Thessaloniki, where he composed many of his famous songs. Some of the key scenes of the film take place in his place, where, same as in Rick's Cafe in 'Casablanca', the German occupiers and the resistance fighters, musicians and lovers meet, eat, drink, listen and sing music in the same space. However, Titsanis is only the secondary character of the film, the main heroes being a couple of young people in love. He, Yorgos (Haris Fragoulis), is a Greek Christian, carpenter by day and waiter by night in Tsitsanis' tavern. She, Estrea (Hristina Heila-Fameli), is a Jewish young woman. The two meet during activities of the clandestine resistance against the German occupiers and fall in love. In normal times, their relationship would have been just an impossible love story like the one of Romeo and Juliet, the two would have had to deal only with the prejudices of the families and of the communities they belong to. In times of war and occupation, however, it was a mortal risk for both, as ties between Jews and Christians were strictly forbidden. The story is told against the background of accentuated racial persecution by the occupiers and their collaborators. Viewers witness boycotts, confiscations, humiliations, forced labor, the ghetto, and finally the deportation on death trains. The end can only be tragic.
The filming style is reminiscent of the classic films of the genre such as 'Schindler's List'. Director Manousos Manousakis emphasized authenticity - the streets, the houses, the restaurant, the music, the language used by the heroes (Greek and Judeo-Spanish of the Sephardic Jews) are exactly reconstructed and give the whole film an immersive atmosphere. The love story is a fiction, but an absolutely credible, a relationship that has of course happened tens, hundreds, thousands of times in war-torn Europe. The fact that the script does not idealize any of the communities described in the film contributes to the authenticity. Both the Jewish and the Christian communities have their heroes and traitors, most of the people resist and oppose oppression, but there are also collaborators who make pacts with the occupiers. The acting interpretations are intense and sincere, managing to get over some clichés and schematics of the dialogues. There is a feeling of deja-vu in some scenes, but I think that the repetition of situations that may look familiar from other films whose action takes place in other countries in the same period is justified. 'Cloudy Sunday' aims and I think it succeeds to a large extent to become a synthesis film of the events that took place in those years in Greece. The value of this docu-drama is both documentary and emotional, describing the last and tragic pages of the history of a community that was lost in the Holocaust. It is a requiem and a warning that the lessons of history must not be forgotten.
