Country: Greece
Movie Review: “Mikra Anglia” is a grievous drama directed by veteran Greek filmmaker Pantelis Voulgaris, based on Ioanna Karystiani’s novel of the same name. The film is set on the Greek island of Andros in 1930, where many women mourn for their beloved men, dead or lost at sea. Orsa is madly in love with Spyros, a brave seaman who promises to marry her after his return from the next trip, which will make him captain, a fundamental condition for the marriage to happen. Spyro’s retired uncle, Emilius, is the one to talk to Orsa’s mother, Mina, to ask for her permission but the answer was a short 'no', since his family is far from the wealth she wants for their daughters. Tormented and abandoned, Mina tries to protect her daughter from having a fate like hers, since her husband, captain Savvas, lives most of the time with his other wife and kid in Argentina. When Mina forces Orsa to hastily marry captain Nikos, Spyros, now a respected captain too, decides to have his revenge asking for the hand of Orsa’s younger sister, Moscha. The situation seems unbearable when the entire family starts living under the same roof. The film takes its time to makes us absorb completely the torments lived by each of the characters – repressed love, absence, guilt, infidelity, fear of losing the loved ones – they’re all silent sufferers who are trying to find some solace in their lives. Will it be possible for the two sisters count with each other? Poetic in words, precise in its images, and sad as a Greek tragedy, “Mikra Anglia” depicts a plausible and bitter reality in tones of homage for all those anguished women.
