A LIGHT-HEARTED FILM FROM COSTA-GAVRAS

"Eden is West", the latest film by Costa-Gavras, an award-winning Greek filmmaker, is Homer’s "The Odyssey" redux. But instead of a man on his way home from war, this film--which screened recently at the 13th Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in London--follows a young man as he leaves his home for a new life abroad.

We’re never told were Elias, the film's hero, is from, and his native language is not one we’ve ever heard. Costa-Gavras, in a Q&A after the screening with Caroline Moorehead, a British author, said he did this to avoid preconceived notions about ethnicity. What we do know about Elias is that he wants a new life. After meeting a Parisian magician at a fancy beach resort in Greece (where he lands after jumping from a refugee’s boat and swimming ashore), he decides he wants to go to Paris. He makes his way there in the hopes of finding the magician and becoming his assistant.

En route from Greece to France, the dashing Elias encounters kindness (people give him rides and free food), sex (men and women seduce him) and theft (people steal his money and his jacket; he steals someone else’s jacket). Once in Paris, He is offered shelter, more food, advice and a tweed blazer to help him blend in.

This is not a gritty film. In Elias’s journey, Costa-Gavras has distilled such messy subjects as race, class and immigration into something tender and simple, even sexy. When audience members asked about his motivations for the film, Costa-Gavras, who is known for injecting politics into his work, was hardly provocative. He explained that "Eden is West" was loosely based on his own experiences moving from Greece to France after finishing high school, about 50 some odd years ago. He wistfully joked that Elias’ good looks were modelled on his younger self.

As a modern tale of immigration, "Eden is West" lacks a certain rawness and immediacy. But as a story of one man's odyssey, it is vivid and touching, finessed by someone who clearly understands what it feels like to journey into the unknown.

~ GARY MOSKOWITZ

Picture credit: "Eden is West"