Athanitis: I am MEDEA
Interview to G. Noir Papaiosif
Intownpost.gr
Intownpost.gr
I am Medea
“Medea” is a huge challenge. My purpose is not just an adaptation of the theatrical play. My film is an attempt to re-invent the original work using primary, archetypal elements, as Medea herself is an archetype character.
“Medea” is based on the masterpiece of Euripides, which I maintain almost as it is but with some important interventions and cuts in the structure of the work. Although the myth is well known, there are constant twists and turns in the script and the unexpected dominates the development of the story.
Time is not clearly defined but it is certainly very far from today, in the distant past. The space in which characters move, is also extreme and abstract.
In the film as well as in the work of Euripides, we meet Medea after the Argonaut expedition and the bloody days in Iolkos. With Jason and their two little boys, they are now in exile in Corinth. Jason abandons her to marry king’s daughter and Medea is forced to leave.
Medea is now a mother, a stranger, a completely fallen and abandoned woman with no place to stay, no place to live. Medea’s character concerns us, as it is emphatically modern, as we see her around nowadays.
Medea has done everything motivated by love. She has put her unusual abilities in the service of her passion to Jason, being the first serial killer. Medea and Jason are a couple of hell lovers.
Even completely abandoned in a strange land, Medea does not wish to take revenge. She wants to punish. She brings catharsis, an extreme cleansing, incredibly hard.
What draws me most to this complex personality is her struggle against power, the male power. I am moved by the double and so unequal struggle she attempts. A battle that seems lost from the beginning, completely in vain. And yet she gives this fight violently, to the end, exceeding all physical and social limits.
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“Medea” is a huge challenge. My purpose is not just an adaptation of the theatrical play. My film is an attempt to re-invent the original work using primary, archetypal elements, as Medea herself is an archetype character.
“Medea” is based on the masterpiece of Euripides, which I maintain almost as it is but with some important interventions and cuts in the structure of the work. Although the myth is well known, there are constant twists and turns in the script and the unexpected dominates the development of the story.
Time is not clearly defined but it is certainly very far from today, in the distant past. The space in which characters move, is also extreme and abstract.
In the film as well as in the work of Euripides, we meet Medea after the Argonaut expedition and the bloody days in Iolkos. With Jason and their two little boys, they are now in exile in Corinth. Jason abandons her to marry king’s daughter and Medea is forced to leave.
Medea is now a mother, a stranger, a completely fallen and abandoned woman with no place to stay, no place to live. Medea’s character concerns us, as it is emphatically modern, as we see her around nowadays.
Medea has done everything motivated by love. She has put her unusual abilities in the service of her passion to Jason, being the first serial killer. Medea and Jason are a couple of hell lovers.
Even completely abandoned in a strange land, Medea does not wish to take revenge. She wants to punish. She brings catharsis, an extreme cleansing, incredibly hard.
What draws me most to this complex personality is her struggle against power, the male power. I am moved by the double and so unequal struggle she attempts. A battle that seems lost from the beginning, completely in vain. And yet she gives this fight violently, to the end, exceeding all physical and social limits.
