Journey from Greece

Djam lives on Lesbos with her stepfather Kakourgos, who runs a restaurant and is close to bankruptcy. He sends her to Istanbul to find a broken part for the boat. In the city she meets a French woman called Avril, who came as a volunteer with refugees and has run out of money and has nothing left. The two set off together towards Greece. Tony Gatlif writes and directs. Daphné Patakia plays Djam and Simon Abkarian plays Kakourgos. At the centre is rebetiko. The music was born in the port cities of Greece in the twenties out of the traditions brought by families expelled from Turkey; it is melancholy and lively at once and belongs to the shared history of the two countries. Gatlif places music inside the narrative in all his films, and does so here: the songs are not background but the actual language the characters speak. The narrative passes over two crises, the Greek economic collapse and the arrival of refugees. It does not tell them in the language of news but through the people the two women meet along the road. It is a French, Greek and Turkish co-production and was presented at the 2017 Cannes film festival. Daphné Patakia became known through the part, which is deliberately written as difficult, awkward and unaccommodating. Who it is for: viewers who like music centred road films and the cinema of Tony Gatlif. Who it is not for: the narrative is scattered, the plotting is weak, and the character's rudeness keeps some viewers at a distance.