Dead Liqueur

A remembrance of a '50s bourgeois childhood in a major Greek city, with something of the 'forbidden games' mystery tale about it, Karypides' film follows the life of two younger boys (one the narrator) who undergo a secret double marriage rite to their adolescent sister in the memory-laden cellar of their house. The basement is a place of mysteries - including a strange story that their father may have murdered a girl in a vat in the liqueur still - that need to be exorcised. Much of the tale is obscure, full of intimations of a class and society struggling to survive past its time, and doing so in the absence of a strong male presence. The pace is slow, and the film is shot with a restrained cinematic style. Odd, moody but intriguing.