05/02/2009

The kindness, tenderness and dignity of strangers amongst the people of Europe, as opposed to the formalistic relentlessness of its law enforcement officers, is what Costa Gavras seems to be mainly seeking in his humanistic, heart-warming modern take on the Odyssey.

Eden is West [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which is set to close the Berlin Film Festival on February 14 and reach theatres in Greece on February 19, is the story of Elias (Riccardo Scamarcio), an illegal immigrant, who infiltrates the European Union through Greece, then tries to make it to Paris, where his dreams of a better future lie within a magician’s hat.

The film offers an exhilarating trip from a far-most end of Europe straight to its heart, starting from the island of Crete and following the axis of an immigrant’s hitchhike journey through Italy and Germany all the way to France.

A plenitude of local actors support Scarmacio’s stellar, almost speechless performance, which shines through and through, grounding the film’s fairy-tale view of every-day modern Europe in a realistic yet always optimistic platform and sets the mood for a bittersweet tale of a man trying to leap the distance between himself and his hopes.

Social and political issues are regularly glanced upon, though pondering is skipped, in favour of a breezy approach of what may be considered a major conundrum in the EU. Thus, Costa Gavras, in what he calls his most personal film, continues his series of accessible crowd-pleasers with a brain, enriched in heart by his omnipresent, discreetly stinging sense of good humour.

The film is produced by KG Productions, Odeon and Pathe Production, co-produced by France 3 Cinema, Nova, ERT, the Greek Film Center, Finos Film and East Media Services and also co-financed by Canal Plus, Ciné Cinéma and the Region Ile de France.