| review: Oxygono (Oxygen/Blackmail Boy) |
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| Written by Boyd van Hoeij | |
| Thursday, 20 April 2006 | |
When Oxygono (literally Oxygen, though the film was released in the US as Blackmail Boy) was released in Greece in 2003, it was both admired and hated for its laissez-faire attitude towards sex, its fruity language and its unusual mix of black comedy and apocalyptic noir. Perhaps shocking in Greece, Oxygono should not be particularly outrageous for the average non-Greek European arthouse fanatic (Breillat or 70s Verhoeven this is not). Helmed by duo Thanasis Papathanasiou and Michalis Reppas, who also wrote the screenplay, the film offers a nightmarish vision of a Greek society on the verge of self-inflicted suffocation – hence the title. In the world of Papathanasiou and Reppas, the morally bankrupt state of society is brought about by excessive individualism, eternal money hunger and the complete lack of love during sex, which is only ever used as a quick feel-good fix or as an element of manipulation. Oxygono’s tone is both comedic and dark, even noir: it plays like the Greek bastard child of Almodóvar’s ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!! (What Have I Done to Deserve This?) and his La mala educación (Bad Education). Christos (Yannis Tsimitselis; a Greek God by way of Elvis) treats his bed partners like a chain-smoker does cigarettes: lighting up another before the last one is even finished. He is not into discrimination, not bothering about age (he has a lover with a child his age) or gender (the person who most turns him on is a male, 40-ish city council worker). Not that he is the exception to the rule; his mother (Nena Menti) and the husband of his older sister (Alexis Georgoulis) are into what might be called incest-in-law. The main (non-physical) action revolves around a plot of land outside of town that belongs to the family, though everyone has different ideas about what should be done to profit from it most. The family’s bakery is certainly not making enough money for all the condoms needed for these next of kin – which can be related back to the directing duo’s most successful film to date called Safe Sex, which was also an exploration of sex and the decay of Greek society. Papathanasiou and Reppas are certainly onto something here as well as the main story succeeds in being dark, funny and opinionated, but where the writer-directors go wrong is when they indulge in soporific asides, including an endless “overhear the guests waffle”-shot at a party that belong in an Altman project but not here and an outrageous epiphany involving a car, water and naked breasts. These excursions do not advance the main story greatly and create jarring tonal shifts that make the film feel like an incoherent whole. A shame, because without these scenes Oxygono would have succeeded in creating its own tone of intelligent noir irreverence. Buy this DVD on amazon.com. Browse: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr, amazon.de, dvdGO.es, internetbookshop.it, nl.bol.com, allposters.com.
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