Arriving successful Trieste, this beauteous larboard with its imposing buildings, amphitheatrical view, and aristocratic cafés, you instantly recognize wherefore this melancholic metropolis is the cleanable mounting for adapting a publication similar The Great Chimera. Here, successful the erstwhile halfway of the Habsburg Empire, successful the shadiness of the Balkans with a beardown Greek presence, the cosmopolitan imaginativeness of the incomparable—so it seems—M. Karagatsis, calved Dimitrios Rodopoulos, comes to life. This imaginativeness is present being brought to the tiny surface with afloat cinematic standards by the nationalist tv network.
ERT’s astir costly tv bid to date—a six-episode accumulation with a fund reaching €1 cardinal per episode—is a bold measurement toward reviving grand, high-quality productions that tin rival cinematic films successful each aspect.
That’s wherefore the attraction to detail—both successful presumption of show and the implicit authenticity of the ambiance and era—can lone beryllium compared to cinematic standards. This attack is shared by manager Vardis Marinakis and the full Greek-Italian co-production team. Karagatsis’ and Marinakis’ Marina—beautiful, timeless, modern, and free—speaks antithetic languages, thinks beyond borders, and embarks connected her ain existential travel against the backdrop of immoderate of the astir stunning landscapes successful Greece and Europe.
In Historic Locations astatine Minus Five Degrees
From the picturesque land of Syros—a Greek coating successful the bosom of the Aegean—to Athens, reflecting the author’s municipality vision, and the expansive estates of the North that align with the novel’s haunting atmosphere, each mounting contributes to reviving the aged cinematic approach, wherever unsocial locations and moods mattered much than lifeless studios with artificial green-screen backdrops.
Here, everything is real: the formed and unit anxiously watching the weather, arsenic beardown winds erstwhile again hold filming astatine Trieste’s port; the dedication of the pb actors to present their best—how much, indeed, did Fotini Pelouzo person to frost truthful that the soundless grief connected her look could beryllium captured successful full? The originative hostility of manager Marinakis, who mightiness walk an full time perfecting a azygous scene; the enthusiasm of the method team, dropping their luncheon mid-bite to unreserved backmost to the set.
“The Great Chimera” is simply a gripping cinematic mini-series with a modern script, steering wide of stereotypical representations. It volition absorption connected the affectional value of the communicative and Marina’s agonizing interior travel toward a redemption she ne'er finds.
“The form, the scenes, the dialogues, the acting, the usage of the camera and light, the sets, the costumes, the music—all volition travel unneurotic organically, allowing the assemblage to acquisition Marina’s travel with the aforesaid affectional strength arsenic erstwhile speechmaking M. Karagatsis’ novel,” notes Vardis Marinakis successful a statement. He explains his imaginativeness up close: to bring this timeless communicative to beingness portion staying faithful to the author’s spirit—yet done a modern lens that highlights its enduring relevance to today.
As we learn, the bid has received the support of manager Dimitris Tarlou, the lad of Marina Karagatsi, who intimately followed the adaptation of the book. This is the archetypal clip the rights person been granted for the publication to beryllium adapted for television—something that had ne'er happened before, successful opposition to different works by Karagatsi.
The project, which faced galore difficulties and delays, involves companies with acquisition successful ample productions, ensuring that the bid volition transcend borders. These see Foss Productions, known for its planetary occurrence with Christoforos Papakaliatis’ Maestro, arsenic good arsenic the award-winning Milky Way by Vasilis Kekatos, Boo Productions, which produced Giorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth, and Blonde Productions, which worked connected the Apple TV bid Tehran.
For anyone with acquisition successful filming, it’s wide that the conditions nether which this bid is being changeable are purely cinematic—a wide reminder that adjacent successful challenging times, large films and bid tin inactive find the radical with the imaginativeness to bring them to life.
On the Road to Syros
In this way, the dynamic yet wounded heroine of Karagatsi’s Marina functioned, from the infinitesimal she archetypal boarded a vessel named Chimera, pursuing her ain chimera-like vision, aboriginal gathering her skipper hubby and yet reaching Syros. While Trieste whitethorn not beryllium the French municipality of Rouen, Marina’s spot of root and starting point, it retains the aforesaid ambiance and logic of a Northern city.
“The sweetest spot wherever radical were thoughtful, the sunsets golden, and the religion bells melancholic,” arsenic Marcel Proust famously described the city. It was successful specified an environment, successful a Baroque religion built connected apical of a Roman temple—evident from the Roman fence—that we recovered ourselves connected a acold February greeting to intimately observe the filming.
The somesthesia reads 5 degrees beneath zero, and it is astir intolerable to basal successful 1 place, adjacent wrong the religion wherever the acold penetrates each pore of our bodies. In vain, Fotini Pelouzo seeks occasional warmth successful a immense overgarment that idiosyncratic from the accumulation rushes to connection during breaks betwixt scenes.
But she is undeterred: seated successful a country of the San Giusto church, with its intricate frescoes and stunning mosaics, she focuses to aboriginal embody the ever-sorrowful Marina wrong the confessional, arsenic she attempts—an atheist Catholic who astir apt loved the past Greek gods much than the Christian ones—to escaped herself of the value of her interior conflicts and guilt.
The faint airy that enters the religion done the beauteous stained-glass windows illuminates her face, bringing retired the aforesaid unchanging melancholy that has agreed successful this metropolis antithetic spiritual groups, artists, adventurers, cursed poets, and writers passim the ages.
A small later, we travel her, on with the full crew, to the awesome mounting of a Catholic cemetery, wherever the proceedings with the acold is genuinely unimaginable. As we hunt successful vain for structure among the imposing tombs with their intricate statues, we observe the extras trying to withstand the acold by drinking beverage during breaks portion wearing the beauteous play costumes. These, too, are a testament to the value placed connected detail, arsenic they were not borrowed from costume shops but were sewn with large attraction from the opening to travel the demands of the bid and the play drama.
Six 1000 pieces (costumes, shoes, antiques) arrived from assorted parts of Italy and Spain to supply the champion imaginable result. “You indispensable spot the production, which won’t hesitate to spell to the ends of the world to procure the missing piece,” I retrieve Daniel Day-Lewis telling maine successful an interview, revealing that helium erstwhile adjacent sought an assemblage with the Pope himself to larn wherever to get his silk crimson stockings.
Here, too, the objects archer their ain story: from the shoes worn by the protagonist on with the corresponding stockings from the interwar period, and the cigarettes smoked backmost then, to the crystal glasses and wines they drank, each of which are called upon for the adjacent enactment scenes acceptable successful a beauteous castle. All of these conspire successful the modulation to a authorities that seems similar non-existence, thing that, arsenic Viennese writer Hermann Bahr said, is calved from Trieste itself.
From the velvet seats of the Caffè degli Specchi astatine the borderline of the square, wherever James Joyce erstwhile had his archetypal drink, to the walks among the graves, each country of the metropolis exudes that consciousness of the unfamiliar that tortures the heroine from the start. “Marina is so a pistillate who fits nowhere,” admits Fotini Pelouzo successful effect to a related question. She admits that knowing this quality is simply a precise hard task for her.
In the aforesaid way, Marina tried to recognize her mother, whom she present silently bids farewell to implicit the sedate successful this country we are observing during the shoot, knowing that it was this mother, contempt being a prostitute, who turned retired to beryllium incredibly generous adjacent aft her death, leaving a immense luck to her daughter. However, she had already scarred Marina with wounds that marked her passim her life, preventing her from ever escaping her tragic fate.
What astir the Love Scenes?
Marina’s communicative fundamentally aligns with the travel of a overseas pistillate coming to Greece during the interwar period, pursuing her emotion for her husband, Yiannis, portrayed by the fantabulous Andreas Konstantinou, whom we person enjoyed successful assorted theatre roles and successful the films of Pantelis Voulgaris, arsenic good arsenic successful TV series. Dimitris Kitsos, known from Maestro and Paralia, plays Yiannis’s younger brother, Mina, with whom Marina becomes progressive successful a doomed relationship.
The iconic mother-in-law, the celebrated Raizena, is played by Karyofyllia Karabeti, and successful the remaining roles, we find Elissaios Vlachos, Giannis Dalianis, and Alexandra Aidini. This is an fantabulous formed of actors who are well-versed successful the keys and conditions of cinematic enactment with corresponding demands.
In bid to attack the analyzable relation of Fotini, who was submissive to her destiny but astatine the aforesaid clip fought against the norms of her time, Fotini Pelouzo work extensively, not lone Karagatsis but besides different novels that look to converse with The Great Chimera, specified arsenic Madame Bovary. She delved into her ain darkness, examined the contradictions within, and yet fell successful emotion with the character. “All you person to bash is deliberation astir the information that the communicative is astir a heroine who lived erstwhile my grandma was calved and did things that nary 1 would person ever imagined.
Marina is portrayed arsenic a pistillate who leaves and travels unsocial astatine a clip erstwhile women couldn’t adjacent imagination of specified things. She had the accidental to unrecorded retired her desires, and she had the luck and misfortune of having a dense past, precise antithetic from everyone else’s. Why bash we condemn her for having a parent who was a prostitute? And since erstwhile is her absorption to assertion her assemblage and her intersexual desires considered sexist? It seems wholly hypocritical and superficial to statement a enactment similar this, which dares to talk astir a pistillate who went against the times, astatine a clip erstwhile today, we inactive brushwood blimpish minds and views,” Fotini says.
In the series, they are not acrophobic to amusement the romanticist magnitude of the enactment and the sensuality of the protagonist. Therefore, arsenic we learn, they employed intimate coordinators, who treble for the actors successful the precise sensual scenes. This was done by Lanthimos successful Poor Things, and it is simply a communal signifier successful Hollywood films, though it is seldom implemented successful Greek productions. Even successful this, the accumulation demonstrates that they are earnestly considering each facet that could assistance the actors present their champion performance.
In this context, aiming to bring retired the afloat erotic imaginable of Marina’s character, Fotini Pelouzo tries to highlight, arsenic overmuch arsenic possible, her sensual broadside and the large cultivation that is evident successful the book. The scenes we observe astatine the Rusic Castle, located successful the northeastern country of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, conscionable a enactment distant from Slovenia, embody a blend of Central European metropolis features and the aerial of the aged empire, alongside that of the Balkans. This mounting captures overmuch of that atmosphere.
These places, with their countless towers, statues that look to person sprung from the aged bridges of Charles, with refined gardens and vineyards stretching similar beauteous paintings crossed the slopes for centuries, adhd yet different furniture to the full project. It’s nary coincidence that the operation wherever the scenes were changeable is said to person been the mounting for the romanticist adventures of Giacomo Casanova, who sought refuge successful this portion from Venice.
At the entranceway of the property stands a statue of Casanova, and marble plaques, scattered successful assorted parts of the garden, carnivore immoderate of the monumental quotes that inspired the nights of the visitors to the tower. This operation is said to person been a acquisition from the erstwhile owner, Giulio Ettore Ritter of the erstwhile Austro-Hungarian Empire, to his daughter, aboriginal passing into the hands of a number who made definite to resurrect the Casanovian spirit.
Karagatsis’ Vision
Even now, the tremendous ballroom, arsenic good arsenic the cigar country with preserved animals from assorted hunts adorning the walls, exude the scents and benignant of the era. The castle was not chosen by accidental for the enactment scene, wherever Marina volition person the accidental to flirt during a creation that steals the amusement with costumes and sets that genuinely look to person emerged from the wildest dreams. Everything has a crushed for being successful this paradoxical chimera-like world. And to imagine, the edifice wherever we each gathered aft filming, successful the halfway of Trieste, is called “The Bacchic Chimera.”
When the universe, successful the end, conspires successful your favour and not against you, you tin spot Karagatsis’ Bacchic imaginativeness and his eerie, secretive fantasies coming to life, turning into vivid, haunting images, similar those with the satellite that “illuminates the dormant sea, the scorched rock, and the hedonistic metropolis with its acold rays, similar a monolithic irony of the airy entity towards the aureate land,” arsenic helium famously wrote, referring to himself arsenic the Dionysian Karagatsis successful The Great Chimera. Ultimately, speaking successful conclusion, “beauty volition prevention the world,” arsenic his beloved Dostoevsky said. If we justice by the quality we experienced during the filming days, it volition surely prevention viewers from the ugliness of the days and the satellite we unrecorded in, with the largest and astir polished tv accumulation to date. As for the filming, it continues successful Greece, connected Delos and Mykonos.
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