Morning Patrol

Morning Patrol (Prioni Peripolis) (1987)

Runtime: 105 minutes

Directed by: Nikos Nikoladis

Starring: Michele Valley, Takis Spyridakis, Liana Hatzi, Nikos Hatzis, Panos Thanassoulis

From: Greek Film Center

Somehow, this is my first Greek movie. Finally being able to check one out was the main goal of what I wanted to see last night. This one in particular came about from a mutual writing a positive review & its availability in HD on YouTube. It is not director Nikos Nikoladis' most famous work but at the end I'll explain why that wasn't selected.

It is one of those arty post-apocalyptic films which-thankfully for me-wasn't either too obtuse or too pretentious. A woman who has amnesia wanders the countryside then a city in Greece and discovers that things are rather odd. Power is still on and the world ending must have just happened with what is still around. Old movies play on TV and in cinemas; in addition, dialogue is sometimes heard from famous authors of the past, such as Raymond Chandler and Philip K. Dick. Oh, and much of the words you hear the lead say are her internal monologues. Odd, although not the strangest example in this genre I've viewed. There actually is a morning patrol that appears in the movie, as one of the obstacles along the way for the protagonist.

This is one of those movies where I don't want to give anything else away as it is best to go in cold and let the viewer attempt to figure out what it all means... as I am not 100% sure of that myself. That said, it was melancholy and dream-like without being a slog to get through or was a punishing sit. For what this was, it was pretty good; the nice direction and strong lead performance from Michele Valley definitely were assets. Like I said, this is not the most famous movie from director Nikos Nikoladis; that honor (and the only movie that has any traction in the West) is 1990's Singapore Sling. To be honest, THAT sounds like a punishing sit and would probably require me to drink a Singapore Sling or two to get through. Apparently it has lovely black and white cinematography but also contains many explicit sexual moments and is quite arthouse. This was more palpable for my tastes last night, in other words.