‘Meat’: Thessaloniki Review

Dir: Dimitris Nakos. Greece. 2024. 104mins

Toxic families may be a tale as old as time, but writer/director Dimitris Nakos spices his debut with the small town rumour mill in his modern Greek tragedy. Nakos sets a confident pace, although his desire to create intensity with excitable handheld camerawork and high volume interactions is sometimes counterproductive.

Cinematographer Giorgos Valsamis’ work is so hyperactive that it risks generating motion sickness

Meat featured in Thessaloniki Film Festival’s Agora works in progress section last year and now joins its International Competition after making its world premiere in Toronto. It will be distributed in Greece by Feelgood Entertainment and, while the familiar themes might make it a tougher sell to distributors elsewhere, it has plenty to commend it to further festivals. 

Middle-aged Takis (Akyllas Karazisis) is in the mood to celebrate. He is about to reopen his butcher’s shop after two years of closure and not even a shouting match with his ex-con neighbour (Dimitris Xanthopoulos) over a long running land dispute is going to take the shine off the moment. Takis and his wife Eleni (Maria Kallimani) have plenty of reasons to be confident about his shop’s opening. Things generally go Takis’ way, not least because he knows how to grease palms, like those of local cop Giorgos (Giorgos Symeonidis), so that people look the other way when it comes to the illegal slaughterhouse he has on his land. 

The butcher is also not a man who suffers fools gladly. That includes his son Pavlos (Pavlos Iordanopoulos), who he views as largely inept – especially in comparison to the hard working and similarly aged Christos (Kostas Nikouli), an Albanian who has long come to be viewed as part of the family.

When, on opening night, the situation flares up at the cottage where Christos lives, a crime is committed that will rot the family from the inside out. Nakos has a knack for family dynamics, allowing Pavlos’ broody glowering in response to Takis speak louder than any argument. His father’s opprobrium serves only to reinforce his mother’s protective instincts, while further hints of arrested development are suggested by Pavlos’s bedroom, where footballers are still kicking about on the curtains from his childhood.

Christos is comparatively alone, his mother just a voice over the telephone, which is just one of the reasons why he feels indebted to Takis and his family. For him, this small town still represents opportunity, while his girlfriend (Natalia Swift) can’t wait to leave for the city. Christos’ gratitude, however, may not be enough, and the question of whether blood is thicker than water hangs over the action as the crime becomes increasingly difficult to cover up. 

Nakos gradually reveals the family’s place within the community, along with the ingrained prejudice towards Christos and the way in which whispers of guilt can travel faster than the wind. Takis, who once viewed the community as docile and easily herded sheep, now realises it holds plenty of wolves. This is not just a question of power, but of money as a corrupting force.

The technique of using a handheld camera to add kinetic energy to the family’s arguments is effective, but cinematographer Giorgos Valsamis’ work is so hyperactive that it risks generating motion sickness. With the camera being continually skittish, Nakos also leaves himself with nowhere further to go when he wants to amp things up. Fortunately, the powerful score from Konstantinos Pistiolis, which employs folk music instruments including bagpipes and the lavta, delivers intensity in more palatable doses. And when the camera does take a breather, the actors deliver plenty of meaty performances; particularly Nikouli and Iordanopoulos, who bring a turbulent mix of friendship and rivalry to the men’s relationship and remain unpredictable to the last.