The Absence- Review

Σεπτεμβρίου 08, 2023

The Absence- Review

“The Absence” (I Apousia) is a Greek short film created by 17-year-old boys and girls who live in Ioannina, Greece. The director and screenwriter is Theodore Dimitri (who also participates in the film as an actor), Nick Grapsas who created the original music for the film and the starring actors are: Nick Vosdou, Georgia Psochiou, Dimitris Foukas, Filippos Zapsas and Natalia Karapanou.

The protagonist of the film is Nickos (Nick Vosdou), a teenage boy who faces various problems that affect his social behaviour and inner world. Unable to handle this complicated situation, Nickos decides to help a former friend (Theodore Dimitri), who is a drug abuser, to steal a house in exchange to give him some sleeping pills. Nickos uses these pills so as to be able to carry out the practise of lucid dreaming, a method that his sister taught him (Georgia Psochiou) and with which he can control his dreams. Nickos’ friends (Dimitris Foukas, Filippos Zapsas) seem curious about this method and try to alert him about the possible dangers of it, but with no success. A confusing and complex situation is created, in which Nickos has to make great decisions in order to recover from this “absence” and make a new start.

“The Absence” is a beautiful, well-crafted short film. Most films created by adolescents suffer from poor audiovisual quality, are often linked to extra curricular school activities and handle overused “teenage” topics, such as drug addiction, bullying, peers and parents pressure. Nonetheless, this specific film is very innovative, especially when taking all the above into consideration. In other words, “The Absence” is a professionally handled film by amateurs that falls into the “teenage films” category as it talks about this age group’s problems. At the same time, it comprises an ideal movie for adults due to its well-developed story and its thematics related to loss and emptiness.

Regarding the technical aspects, I would like to highlight that although film direction is a demanding cinematographical domain, the professional outcome has more than credited the creators’ efforts, despite the use of very basic equipment. Moreover, the movie’s soundtrack created by Nick Grapsas lasting almost 25 minutes is cohesive to the visual content, achieves to create the atmosphere required in each scene and comprises a synthesis of a wide variety of musical instruments. Most of the actors have an experience in acting, mainly in theatrical plays and their acting is quite persuasive considering their young age. Another important parameter as far as the actors are concerned is that each one of them is able to develop a specific characteristic of his/her role. For example, Nickos manages to show that he is deeply pondering, or that he is confused even when he is not talking. Another instance is Georgia who plays the role of the sister and was deliberately chosen so as to seem older than an average 17-year-old girl, as in the screenplay she is older than Nickos. Also, the screenplay achieves to create a deliberate confusion over which parts of the film are part of Nickos’ dreams and which scenes truly take place in reality. As a consequence of this, the viewer may find several parts of the movie to be duplicated or seem quite unorthodox or even unnecessary, but most of them at the end find their place in the movie puzzle. In addition, the unexpected meaningful ending comprises the best part of the whole movie, as it creates an emotionally-charged bittersweet atmosphere.

“The Absence” is a short film that I highly recommend, not only for the well crafted parts that I mentioned above, but also for the effort and love these teenagers have put on it.

Stay tuned for more interesting details in a forthcoming interview with the film creators!

Click here to watch the trailer of the film: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69DtvhO2gyE&t=1s)