Babis Makridis’ L is a haunting road-movie about a man facing an economic dead-end. By Edward Lawrenson
“The idea comes from some while back,” says Babis Makridis of his feature debut
L. “A good friend of mine, Yorgos Giokas, sent me a short story about a man who lives in his car and drives around for no apparent reason. So we started working on the script together.”
Working with Efthimis Filippou (the screenwriter of
Alps, also screening at IFFR), Makridis added new elements to this original premise and three months later had a draft ready. That draft – “a work-in-progress”, says Makridis, who allowed for continual rewriting during production – became the basis for this haunting Tiger entrant. Played with doleful intensity by Aris Servetalis (also in
Alps), the driver protagonist of
L (known simply as ‘the Man’) rarely leaves his car for the first half of the movie. Driving along stretches of empty, anonymous-looking roads and motorways, he picks up deliveries for a rich client. On agreed days, he meets his former wife in a half-deserted car-park and spends awkward time with his young kids. And each night, he takes off his shoes, leaves them outside his parked car, and sleeps inside the vehicle. But the joyless order of this routine is shattered when his client dispenses with his services in favour of a better driver who appears...
Combining moments of sideways absurdism with atmospheric views of the stark concrete landscapes through which the protagonist drives,
L’s style is slow-burning and deadpan. But beneath its implacable surface, the film’s depiction of the Man’s economic and emotional struggle has a gathering poignancy. The film’s depiction of the damaging impact caused by the loss of the Man’s regular job has added resonance given Greece’s current financial woes. “We did not intend to show realistically the economic dead-end faced by the lead character. I think the film is simply open to interpretation and it is natural for others to read into it aspects of Greek’s current situation, since it comes from a country facing its worst economic calamity.”
Working on a low-budget – “it would not have been made without our friend and collaborators” – the film was shot in locations around Athens over 27 days. “Improvisation was the norm,” says Makridis, who adds that scenes were often rewritten the night before. A lasting memory of the shoot is “the funny look on Aris’ face when Efthimis would give him these huge monologues he had just written, while I was telling him he’d have to memorise them ASAP because we were loosing the light.”
More about L here.