1922

Greece, 1979, 135 minutes, Colour.
Antigone Amanitis, Vasos Andronidos, Karen Black.
Directed by Nikos Koundouros.

1922 is a powerful Greek film with the scope and sweep of history as well as tragedy for Greeks living in Turkey in the early 20th. century. The film takes a particularly Greek point of view, a view not necessarily shared by the Turks. The focus is in the clash between the Turks and Greeks after World War One: the Turkish army, led by Ataturk, entering Smyrna with the consequent sacking of the city and the massacre.

After this more than a million Greeks who had lived in Turkey were repatriated. The film makes its dramatic impact by showing the sweep of the historical action, the leadership of Ataturk and the suffering of a small group of Greeks fleeing from Smirna.

1. The impact of Greek history? Turkish history? The picture of a particular year, particular events? The memory and its importance for Greeks? The impact for Turks? The Greek feeling, anti-Turkish feeling? The critique of this violent war?

2. Production values: location photography, the creation of the period and atmosphere, Smyrna, the desert? The use of tableaux, movement sequences, close ups ? especially for anguish and suffering? Symbols? The musical score?

3. The political situation, the information given, the title with the year, its significance? The uses of places and dates? The historical background of Greeks in Asia? Turkish nationalism and feeling? Antagonism with the Greeks? Periods of coexistence and clash? Racial questions? Questions of superiority? The problem of the Armenians? Emerging Turkish nationalism? Turkish allies and enemies? Political and financial interests? For -example the banks and their dilemmas. the armies?

4. The establishing of the atmosphere: photo, theatre, Greek spirit, army confidence? The focus on Lucia and her husband? The thugs? Eruptions and violence and creation of tension?

5. The arrival of the Turks, the takeover, the hounding of people in the streets, the Armenian deaths? The rabble and the children? The army and their giving the appearance of brutality to atrocity?

6. The mounting number of deaths, escapes, shooting, castration, axe killings? Ali Osman and attitudes? The desert and the cruelty? The shooting at the well, the woman. the mass killings?

7. Turks and sympathy? The possibilities of coexistence or feelings of inferiority? The Turkish manner and style, the focus on belly dancers, the gamblers, the women? The background of international apathy and consequent Turkish feeling?

8. The Greek characters: portraits, types, the cross-section offered. way of life, business. prisoners? Lucia and the hats, the parasol, her husband, the killing and her hair? Elias and the photo, the lesson, protection? The two who survived by chance and are victims?

9. The older characters: the woman, protection, her sons gone, the sexuality and the daughter, the old teacher and the panic? Panic in the streets, death, Osman? Lucia's husband? The violinist playing?

10. Smyrna as symbol for the brutality of the war? The march, the water. the desert, death?

11. The end and the Red Cross, the sick nurse, the two wrestlers and the applause?

12. An insight into history? Understanding of hostility, exploitation, resentment and vengeance? War and its cruelty? The inhumanity of such atrocities? National feeling? The invitation to the audience for judgment?