HOSTAGE (OMIROS)
Greece, 2005, 105 minutes, Colour.
Stathis Papadopoulos, Theodora Tzimou.
Directed by Constantinos Giannaris.
Ethnic and national tensions are to the fore in Constantinos Giannaris’ Greek drama, Hostage. It takes place over one day. Elian gets up one morning in a town in Northern Greece. He reads his Albanian mother’s tenderly desperate letter, then burns it. He walks to the bus station and, during the journey, hijacks the bus.
The film dramatises real events of 1999. Giannaris talked to actual hostages and families to create a human story for his political thriller drama.
As the hijack proceeds, most of the hostages begin to act according to ‘The Stockholm Syndrome’. They gradually understand what motivates Elian (anti-Albanian prejudice, police framing him for arms dealing, torture and revenge for his affair with a police chief’s wife) and begin to identify with the hijacker. The Greek police seem sympathetic – the cold ruthlessness at the end is a shock. The Albanian police take Elian’s mother to the border and act with the Greek police.
Hostage fills in the back story of the hijacker in some detail (as well as some imagining of what he thought might be the happy outcome of his actions). It shows his determinations as well as his fallibility. The stories of the hostages are also briefly developed. When the final confrontation occurs, quick editing and sound make the audience literally jump in shock.
This is familiar enough material, but the treatment is well above average and takes its audience into the troubled world of Albania and Northern Greece of the 1990s.
1. Based on a true story: the details, the fictional aspects, the political message?
2. The settings of northern Greece, the town, the coast, the border with Albania, the Albanian mountains?
3. The impact of the score, especially the drums and its creation of atmosphere?
4. The titles and the references to Elian, to the others in the bus, to the captors, to the victims?
5. The narrative: the flashbacks, the future imaginings, the reality of the present?
6. The structure as a one-day drama, for Elian, for each of the hostages, the driver, for the police, Elian’s mother?
7. Elian and his waking up, getting dressed, preparing for the journey, reading his mother’s letter and burning it, the bus station, watching people, taking his bag in the bus, the driver allowing him, his seat? The sudden takeover, his manner? The cause – the police, his arrest, the background story of the torture, racial prejudice, the documents, his affair with the police chief’s wife? His letting people off – the two women? The threats, the choosing of people to release?
8. The police, his demands on them, their contacts, the stalling behind the scenes, audience sympathy for the police, for Elian? The interviews with the police chief? The merciless attitude at the end?
9. The television, the cameras, the interviewers, the questions? His response? His needing the television? His family seeing it in Albania? The phone calls?
10. The world of technology, television, mobile phones, the contrast with Albania?
11. The effect of the siege day on Elian, his holding the grenade, his hand growing stiff, his being persuaded to throw it away? The gun, the shooting? His treatment of the driver? The man at the front who eventually died? His relationship with the woman leaving her family? Elian talking with them, getting to know them? Their allowing him to have a rest? His remembering? The border, his mother?
12. The driver and his attitudes, ability to cope, driving all day? The man and the interactions with Elian, Elian’s attitude towards his running away with the woman? Their talking, his being persuaded to let go the grenade? The irony that he died? The woman, audiences seeing her leave home, her relationship with her son? The toilet sequence, her shock at her friend’s death? The priest waiting outside the bus and not wanting to get off? The lesbian woman and her relationship? The ill man, his attitudes, wanting Jimmy, Jimmy not waiting? His racism and apology? His being looked after by the African? His being sick? The African man, singing, kind?
13. The explanation of the Stockholm Syndrome? The hostage identifying with their captor as they understood his situation better? The same with the audience?
14. The portrait of Elian’s mother, at home, his brother, the marketplace, the Albanian police driving her? Her memories? The suddenness of Elian’s death, her grief, her being lied to?
15. The Greek police, the entourage, the Albanian police, the collaboration with the Greeks – and the sudden shock?
16. The reality of the event, its becoming a symbolic journey? The hostage-taking not justified?
