"Medea" is a rare film that combines a pure cinematic sense with tragedy, standing out of time, out of space. The film re-invents the original play using primary, archetypal elements,
as Medea herself is an archetype character. The filmic time is not clearly defined but it is certainly very far from today, in the distant past. The space in which characters move, is also extreme and abstract. The only scenery is the mountains and the woods, while Medea with her children lives in an abandoned, collapsing house. Costumes have no very specific ornaments of the exact time period, although we have the sense that the story takes place in a time some centuries bc.
Medea is a mother, a stranger, a completely fallen and abandoned woman with no place to live as she has to go away for one more time. But she is a powerful woman, who does not dare to confront the Power, the man's power. Even if the characters speak in modern Greek, their talk is very near to Euripides language. Medea stays distant, almost dark, nobody can read her thoughts but at the same time her character concerns us, as she looks emphatically modern.
The film stays faithful to the spirit of the original masterful play by Euripides but has some important novelties. Here, nothing is told before action, as there is not any Chorus. There are also some changes in two characters and finally Athanitis adds four new scenes, of his own. These scenes, two in the beginning and two in the end -in a meaningful symmetry- have no dialogues and gives a pure cinematic sense to the film, helped by an abstract music theme, signed also by the director.
"Medea" besides her classic approach has the structure of a thriller as we never know, we can never predict what is going to happen next. Even the characters close to Medea, the Maid and the Nurse cannot understand her thinking and preview what is coming up. Medea is a completely unpredictable character, who based on her own internal forces and wisdom tries to face her enemies, taking advantage of every little change is happening. So in every scene except the main action we watch, there is a second one, that takes place in the mind of Medea for which we have only few signs.
Filmed mainly in black and white, Athanitis's view on the classic play by Euripides has an extraordinary beauty and a surprisingly powerful performance from Alexandra Kazazou, as Medea. Sixty years after the unsuccessful attempt with Maria Callas, Athanitis dares to confront the provocative story of an archetype character, maybe the most powerful female character ever presented in literature and to drive Alexandra Kazazou to a solid performance that reminds those of Falconetti in Drayer's Vampire or Adjani's in Posession.
