daisy (Moderator)'s Talk

Eden à l'Ouest (Eden Is West)

The story of this film begins at dawn over a stunning Aegean sea, introducing a mythic note that will underlie the entire film. When the Coast Guard confiscates the tub, Elias (Scamarcio) is one of the brave lads who jumps (jump to freedom) into the dark waters and swims ashore. He awakens on the beach which is part of the luxurious Hotel Eden. Mistaken for a hotel employee, he mutely wanders around, fighting off the sexual attentions of the hotel manager, until a lonely lady from Hamburg (Juliane Kohler) takes him into her bed. Though it sounds like farce, this is is all played straight to show the decadent West assaulting the shocked innocent. Because of the police Elias leaves this artificial Western paradise and strikes out for a mythical Paris, where he hopes to find a stage magician who has befriended him. On the road to his paradise, he passes through some very interesting advendures..
Director Costas Gavras has always been strong on social commitment and he is responsible for some of the most revered and influential films in the history of modern political cinema He was directed memorable films like "Z" (foreign language Oscar), "Missing" (Cannes Palme d'Or) and "Music Box" (Berlin Golden Bear). I think it's not surprising he would choose to explore Europe's currently gigantic socio-political problem, though at this point the immigrant genre is so overworked in European cinema it should probably be banned for the next five years. It's an episodic film, a journey, not of an individual, but of all those people who, as the director comments ?have to leave in order to survive.It is like a number of Costa-Gavras?s films in that it concentrates on a human rights/social justice issue, not so much on characters, plot or aesthetic. And as someone who identifies as a ?cultural and economic immigrant,? Gavras has inside knowledge of this experience. Also in this film Gavras is eager to flex the funny bone he showed in Mad City and The Ax, delivering the brightest, most-entertaining film of his illustrious career.