Creating a remarkably bizarre journey that inexplicably commits to the surrealistic dream logic yet keeps the stark contrast of the harsh and dour reality of how two delusional and unprepared children crossing a whole country searching for a father that doesn't exist would feasibly look like.
It's rough, but the children will persist.
Together with the fairy tale that the sister describes in the beginning, bizarre occurrences will seep into their journey. It becomes quite obvious that it's not going to be a down-to-earth road movie. It even has its own version of a knight on an armored horse, but unfortunately for the sister, even there, her hopes are to be dashed against grim reality. The kids are genuinely great. And many scenes must have been very difficult to direct with them, especially that one scene.
In fact, the movie is so visually depressing, with a great deal of long shots of industrial, run-down, rustic scenery in Greece, that you wouldn't be ungrounded to think that the primary theme the director tries to communicate is how depressing the country is and how everyone wants to get out of there, to the point of creating a fairy tale to motivate themselves, and how the country's history and identity are relegated to a bunch of 'remember-when' conversations. But it's not about that, at least I hope. Their wayfaring is just a personification of how, on our journey through time, not everything is going to make sense, and if you quell the rationality to dismiss everything nonsensical you encounter on this path, you might... actually, here I fall silent because I don't think the movie even remotely pretends it had an end destination.
It's rough, but the children will persist.
Together with the fairy tale that the sister describes in the beginning, bizarre occurrences will seep into their journey. It becomes quite obvious that it's not going to be a down-to-earth road movie. It even has its own version of a knight on an armored horse, but unfortunately for the sister, even there, her hopes are to be dashed against grim reality. The kids are genuinely great. And many scenes must have been very difficult to direct with them, especially that one scene.
In fact, the movie is so visually depressing, with a great deal of long shots of industrial, run-down, rustic scenery in Greece, that you wouldn't be ungrounded to think that the primary theme the director tries to communicate is how depressing the country is and how everyone wants to get out of there, to the point of creating a fairy tale to motivate themselves, and how the country's history and identity are relegated to a bunch of 'remember-when' conversations. But it's not about that, at least I hope. Their wayfaring is just a personification of how, on our journey through time, not everything is going to make sense, and if you quell the rationality to dismiss everything nonsensical you encounter on this path, you might... actually, here I fall silent because I don't think the movie even remotely pretends it had an end destination.