“HOMESICK” by Alexandros Papadiamantis – Directed by Dimos Avdeliodis

Lalio, a young woman married to a 53year-old man, a man of her father’s age, aches by her desire to come back to the neighboring island, her homeland. Her encounter with Mathios, an 18year-old boy, who has fallen in love with her, inspires her to get on a stranger’s boat on impulse in order to go far away, towards her homeland. When, following a pursuit by her husband, they are forced to return, the desire of getaway fades out on the coast of the reality.

What the homesick woman misses? (Nostalgia= homesickness + homecoming + ache + mental pain)

The power and the fascination of Papadiamantis do not exist just within the aesthetical elements of the language or in the vivid naturalistic images but mainly in his perseverance on the constant pursuit of the truth behind the actions and the decisions of his heroes. It is not just an infallible realistic representation, or persuasive sketch of the characters but for a deep and rigorous approach of the human desire’s “landscape”, there where dreams are born or frustrated and the unconscious choices which prey upon human beings.

Lalio, suffocating in her impasse reality, desires to come back to the land of her parents, to the land of her establishment, prior even she had talked, there where she had been once safe and idle. She desires, in other words, a vain return, since when even that takes place, it turns out twice painful, without being able to reverse or recompose time. A sense of dramatic loss who we have – not necessarily realizing- all the “speaking” mortal human beings. (Bibliography: Yannis D. Oikonomou, Leitourgies Afanisis)