‘Black Stone’: Thessaloniki Review

Dir: Spiros Jacovides. Greece. 2022. 87mins

Civil servant Panos Dologlou (Achilleas Chariskos) hasn’t been home for two days and his 68-year-old mother Haroula (Eleni Kokkidou) is worried sick. When a camera crew turns up on the doorstep of the home she also shares with her wheelchair-using older son Lefteris (Julio George Katsis) she assumes they’re news reporters and immediately invites them in. They are, in fact, a documentary crew, on the trail of Panos because he has been accused of fraud. This could be the set up for a drama, but it’s mostly played for absurdist laughs; the filmmakers capturing every moment of the wild goose chase hunt for Panos.

The pitch-perfect central performance by Kokkidou is what really sells all the laughs

Debut director Spiros Jacovides and his co-writer Ziad Semaan mine the documentary framework for pathos-driven mother-and-son comedy, while adroitly skewering Greek xenophobia along the way. Humorous sight gags blend with well-delivered sit-com scripting in a similar fashion to recent UK mockumenary Brian And Charles. It’s a winning combination that should easily carry Black Stone to further festivals after wins at Thessaloniki including the Greek Film Centre and Youth Jury Awards, while its universal message of acceptance deserves to attract streamers.

Jacovides fully commits to the documentary conceit, using the crew – particularly, the sound recordist – as an additional part of the joke, only once or twice allowing establishing shots that feel like a bit of a cheat. As the crew start to follow clues to Panos’ whereabouts, a friendly black taxi driver Michalis (Kevin Zans Ansong) also enters the equation. Michalis is eager to help this sweet old lady find her son, despite her initially racist reaction to him. Part of the joke rests on the fact that Michalis is Greek, something that Haroula can’t quite wrap her head around. Semaan and Jacovides don’t let wider society off the hook either, not just attacking xenophobes but poking gentle fun at would-be allies who have set up the Athens Black Panthers and who come to hope Michalis will be their first black member. 

The pitch-perfect central performance by Kokkidou is what really sells all the laughs. Haroula’s earnest hopefulness, no matter how bizarrre the situation, is a constant source of delight, whether she’s padlocking Lefteris’ in his wheelchair to a railing for safety or recounting the tale of a fishbone incident that has scarred her for life, and she is treated affectionately by the script. Haroula may hold some prejudices but the character has been carefully crafted so that we see how essentially good hearted she is. When the film’s third act calls for more serious drama, Kokkidou slips seamlessly into it, carrying us with her. It comes as little surprise to learn the film is dedicated to Jacovides own mum Olia, who passed away this year.

Beyond the main cast, there are some lovely cameos; a would-be suitor whose bizarre gifts include everything from a snow globe to an oven glove, a neighbour who insists on bringing round food. Intricate production design from Dimitra Panagiotopoulou adds to the humour, from a picture window at Panos’ office which reveals paperwork being tossed into an enormous pile, to Haroula’s home where every square inch seems to be occupied by a doilly or ornament. 

You might argue that a running joke about Lefteris needing the loo wears a bit thin and that a ‘dream sequence’ that initially feels rooted in a send up of documentary-making pushes its idea too far, but the hit rate for the humour is consistently high throughtout – all the way up to one last, perfectly crafted visual punchline.