On the evening of his 50th birthday, a former evzone of the Greek Presidential Guard, and now a midnight radio announcer, decides to use the airwaves to locate the woman he loved and lost almost 30 years earlier by playing tapes of messages she left on his answering machine in the hope that she calls him on air. The messages alternate with imaginary dialogues that unfold in his head, with images of a possible reunion with his long-lost lover.
The director, who also plays the central character, Remos Haralambidis, has made an enchantingly poetic film, a meditation on aging, an ode to romance and, above all, a homage to the city of Athens.
And an Ode to the Parthenon Sculptures.
The imagery of Athens at night is enchanting.
A central theme is the Midnight Announcer’s dreamlike fascination with the replica of the East Pediment of the Parthenon which is in the Acropolis metro station located near the escalator leading to the Acropolis Museum. Locals and tourists alike pass by the sculpture every day but in the stillness of an Athenian night, the midnight radio presenter finds a warm embrace in the arms of the pedimental sculptures, reclining against the goddesses Demeter and Persephone, with a naked Dionysios in solemn contemplation. At the centre of the east pediment, after all, was the miraculous birth of the goddess Athena from the head of her father Zeus.
The replica of the east pediment at the Acropolis metro station is a basic part of the movie
In the words of the Night Announcer:
“Athens always vindicates me as a city where you can find yourself in the arms of antiquity as the trains pass by and the crowd comes and goes indifferently … There are nights when I get off at the metro stop just before it closes and I lie on the pediment. I become a part of it and a fragment of it. And I close my eyes. And I dream of those who scripted the action of the statues before they carved them. Who agreed on what would happen within the pediment? How could they imagine that they were writing scenes for my new movie?”
And then as if I hear the chisel of Phidias leaving the marble to reveal the forms.
Somewhere there will be heard the creepy saws of the plunderer Lord Elgin and the abduction will be carried out on uncharted lands.
I wonder what the statues think of me? Perhaps I puzzle them since I am the only one, perhaps, through the centuries, who rests and finds himself lying among them again. I become part of their narrative for a while.
So by staging the eastern pediment at the metro stop on the Acropolis. Although perfectly still through the centuries, with their original substance to be found in the Old Albion, as if the statues listen like unenlightened actors to my stage directions. As if they were dancing impatiently for my camera. And made light with a human frivolous weight. With their broken limbs, in their other form, they wandered after midnight on the deserted subway platform.
His fellow actors, the ballerina played by Eleftheria Stamou, a dancer with the Greek National Opera Ballet, and the mysterious girl voiced by Margarita Amarantidis, add to the drama and enchantment of Midnight Athens Radio.
Eleftheria Stamou as the dancer-ballerina had to convey all the emotions and nuances of the relationship as recorded on the answering machine through movement and dance which demanded absolute precision and attention to every detail of body language.
In an interview given to Xristina Tsatsaragou of News247:
“Athens, with its rich history and diversity, created the ideal setting for the film, lending authenticity and depth to the narrative. Filming in different parts of the city, from the ruins of ancient Athens to modern cityscapes, enhanced the sense of nostalgia and romance that always characterize Reno’s films.”
But her favourite scene was the shoot in the Acropolis metro, where the Midnight Announcer is lying on the ancient statues and she is dancing next to him and interacting with them:
“This scene stands out for me because it captures the connection of the past with the present and the intensity of the moment”
For Margarita Amarantidis, her role is to give voice to a girl in love and soul to a memory:
“The voicemail girl’s existence comes to permeate all ages, it is a romantic archetype, it is the words that all “abstract”, hurt, desperate lovers would like to hear to bring back the vitality of a lost world. A world born from the flame of love.”
And a world yearning for the return of the lost Parthenon sculptures, a truth that the performers dare not.
But Renos Haralambidis is also on clandestine mission to recover the Parthenon Sculptures, as he candidly admits in an interview with his good friend, Yannis Andritsopoulos, who is the London correspondent for the Greek newspaper, TA NEA, and has written extensively on the campaign to reunify the Elgin collection of Parthenon Sculptures.
The Night Announcer has just gone to London for the premiere screening of the film and knows that when he visits the British Museum he will come face to face with the original sculptures of the east pediment:
“I will see the original – and unfortunately stolen – east pediment of the Parthenon up close, I will not be able to take the pleasure of losing myself in the arms of the broken statues as I can I do in Athens.”
In a social media post, Remos Haralambidis cannot help but go to the originals and whisper to them “just a little more patience and we’ll bring you home… »
The east pedimental sculptures, together with all of the Elgin collection currently held in the British Museum, deserve to be reunited in the Acropolis Museum in Athens. Only then will the Night Announcer on Midnight Athens Radio find true solace.
The return has begun …
George Vardas is the Arts and Culture Editor of Greek City Times and has been involved in the international campaign for the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures for more than 25 years.