There's no love like crim love
dir: Christos Massalas
2022
What is this film about…
I’m not entirely sure. It’s maybe about a bunch of people who have ended up as outcasts, of a sort, who gravitate to a mothballed theatre called the Broadway, somewhere in Athens, who get through life as petty criminals.
But that would be a simplistic rendering. The main character is Nelly (Elsa Lekakou), or at least I assume she’s the Main Character because she often shares her thoughts with us, the shmucks in the audience. She seems like she gives zero fucks about anything, but I think that might not be entirely true.
She implies that she is fleeing from a wealthy family, for reasons that are not shared with us, so she doesn’t do what she does, whether it’s stripping or aiding the other pickpockets, for the money per se. She doesn’t have expensive habits, since her one vice seems to be petrol sniffing.
I have to admit that I was stunned when that was shown, but then I remembered that Greece has been an economic basket case for decades, and then it made perfect sense. If petrol is about 2 euro a litre in Greece, and she only needs to half fill a small bottle, she can get a numbing buzz for a few cents at a time, which lasts days and days.
Please don’t see this as endorsement: I’m still horrified.
When hired goons turn up where she works, and try to manhandle her, a steely eyed grey haired crim called Markos (Stathis Apostolou) knocks them about and “rescues” her. In her voiceover, she relates to us her general luck in getting out of sticky situations: someone always comes along and rescues her, which she is tired of, because for once she wishes she could be the one doing the rescuing.
They are immediately shagging in some bushes before he brings her back to the Broadway, where she is introduced to the rest of the ragtag bunch. There’s the avuncular-seeming Locksmith (Hristos Politis), who locks them all up and night and unlocks the gate in the morning, there’s Mohammed and Rudolph (Salim Talbi and Rafael Papad), who I think are a couple, and there’s a monkey in a cage called Lola.
There’s also someone recovering from a serious beating in one of the store rooms. I wonder if he will play an important part in the proceedings?
These people are, on the criminal totem pole, the lowest of the low. Nelly puts on some of the costumes she finds in the theatre space they live in, grabs a stereo (or Boom, I’m not sure), plays that music and dances for passers by. Apparently she’s such a great dancer that crowds form and stand motionless as she does her thing; transfixed as they are, they don’t notice when Markos and the other guys lift all their wallets.
All the proceeds of their crimes go to the Locksmith, who totals up the cash, holds on to the credit cards and IDs that can be sold off, and divvies it out in a manner we’re sure is going to be less than fair. But he represents the House, and the House always wins, as we should all know.
Nelly don’t care. She doesn’t do this for the money. She certainly doesn’t do it for love of Markos, who seems like a bit of a cold sociopath. She does clearly feel some affinity for the monkey in the cage, who she lets out when she can, despite being told the monkey has rabies.
The monkey is trapped in the cage, and eventually Nelly realises somewhat belatedly that she and the rest of them are trapped in a larger cage. Of course there are benefits to this place. I am sure the fact that there’s a large rooftop area made it very easy to film during the lockdown / covid era. I have seen so many films made in that era filmed in Athens that I wonder how it happened when Greece has such strict lockdowns otherwise, compared to other European countries. Which is why they’ve only had 35,000 or so officially recorded covid-related deaths thus far. That seems low. They’re such an unhealthy bunch, especially as depicted in their films.
Whatever. Throughout the film there are references made to some powerful, shadowy people, important people. Way more important than the people we’re watching. They have actual power, agency, a will to get their way. Our people here are nothing compared to those powerful people. But the people we’re watching are these ‘unimportant’ ones. Even if the actions of these far away people have catastrophic effects on their lives, we only see the impact, and not the instigation of it.
What feels like ages ago I mentioned there was a chap in a room with bandages on his face. The story arises that this person, called Jonas initially (Foivos Papadopolous), is being pursued not only by a crime lord, but also by rivals to that crime lord. So the initial jerk, usually referred to as the Marabou, which is the ugliest, foulest bird that natural selection has foisted upon this world, wants Jonas because he can identify him, and knows of his weaknesses. Rivals want to take down the Marabou, including the cops, so they want Jonas to do that.
Jonas just wants to, I don’t know, dance, maybe.
Nelly takes him under her wing, and transforms him from Jonas to Barbara. Jonas is tall and lithe enough to convincingly pull off the transformation, and looks great as a performer.
I have to tread carefully here, not because I want to avoid offence, but because conceptually I just want to get it right. This flick is not, I don’t think, saying that Jonas identifies as a woman. Although it would make sense to argue that at least some aspects of this flick flirt with ideas about gender fluidity and transness, I don’t think that’s really where the flick is going. Jonas as Barbara is hiding out, appearing in public in a disguise, essentially, but doing what they’re doing in order to keep hiding out.
The bastard Locksmith effectively forces Jonas into prostitution in order to allow him to keep staying at the Broadway, but Jonas goes along with it. I hesitate to say that Jonas consents to this, because there’s essentially a gun to his head.
That’s not consent. Nelly, I think, figures this out, but there is not much she can do.
When she and Barbara dance to the theme from Fame, or, slightly ironically, to You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) by Dead or Alive, the crowds are even more entranced than ever, making them even easier pickings, but Markos watches on with growing resentment. Thankfully, the people pursuing Nelly coordinate their efforts with the cops, and Markos gets busted and sentenced to jail.
The others get free from the cops due to the timely intervention of a coordinated attack by a gaggle of drag queens (I think, please forgive me if I didn’t get that right, not knowing what the correct collective term is), meaning brooding Markos is the only one pinched.
Now begin the halcyon days. Nelly gets to dance with and shag Barbara, money’s tight but she don’t care, and everyone mostly gets along.
Until Markos comes back several months later.
There may have been a tension in the flick previously, but now it rises to almost unbearable levels, as Nelly just wants to get the fuck out of Dodge, but doesn’t want to see Jonas / Barbara fed to the wolves, Markos wants to… I am not sure, hurt people because that’s the only thing he understands, Mohammed and Rudy want to stay out of the way so as not to get trampled, and the Locksmith wants everything to stay in stasis because, like all landlords, he wants to get money for nothing.
I am not entirely sure what the flick is trying to say about anything, whether it’s about male / female cis het relations, or tolerance for gender fluid people, or the dissolution of binaries, or relationships between people on the edges of society, or crims being crims, or what life on the margins is really like, or how easily you can start contemplating murder when your options shrink to nothing. There’s probably a deeper economic argument at play here, as there is in most contemporary Greek cinema, about the way Greek society has been hollowed out by decades of austerity measures, but again I don’t know enough.
I’m not smart enough or informed enough to figure any of that out. I can’t say that I always found it enjoyable to watch, but I was fascinated throughout, wondering where it was going to go, and how crushed these little people were going to be by the stampeding of giants.
It was very interesting, to me. It’s visually strong, the performances are strong, yet strange in many ways. Nelly is a complicated, chaotic character, and while I didn’t always understand her motivations, I think I liked her choices, including her climactic actions.
And I thought the ending was really solid. It’s less a happy ending and more of a relief of an ending. Also has a lovely soundtrack by legendary composer Gabriel Yared, who’s been doing solid work since as far back as Betty Blue, which is a soundtrack that I’ve listened to literally thousands of times. This one is no less beautiful, but it’s unlikely that I’ll listen to it as many times (especially since I’m not 18-19 anymore).
Broadway is something of an intriguing film. I wonder how long it will stay with me.
8 times if I was hiding out from a crime lord, the first thing I’d do is drink a lot and post taunts online out of 10
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“Life in Broadway wasn’t what I expected. To get in you had to give something away. To get out, too.” - Broadway
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