Set in 1922 during the Greek-Turkish war, the Greek melodrama Nyfes (Brides) is not about that war but rather about a minor skirmish involving two timid and prude lovers on a transatlantic ocean liner. The Pantelis Voulgaris film seems to adhere to the logic of filmmaking and morals from around the time that the story is set, as the film is old-fashioned to an almost unbearable extent. Nyfes certainly has an impeccable technical package and benefits from unsullied performances, but its laboured plot proceeds at the sluggish speed of the voyage across the Atlantic it so painstakingly portrays, without the reward of being in the Promised Land at the end of the journey.

 

Niki Douka (Russian-born actress Victoria Haralabidou), one of many daughters from a poor Samothracian family, is sent to the United States to replace her older sister who was a mail order bride to an emigrated Greek but who could not bear her life in Chicago and returned home. Niki, who thinks she is more pragmatic about her duties as a woman and the honour of her family, travels on the SS King Alexander, where she is just one of 700 mail order brides, all travelling third class (in fact they seem to be the only ones in third class). By chance Niki meets the failed American war photographer Norman Harris (Londoner Damian Lewis sporting an impeccable US accent) who travels first class and who is on his way home to save a doomed marriage as well -- his own. Both confined to the closed space of a ship, they open up towards one another knowing that they will never be able to be together in the real world.      

 

However, neither of them is searching for the quick fix kind of a fling, which  might explain why it takes them so long to finally get together. Despite this, director Voulgaris and screenwriter Ioanna Karystiani are not too subtle about who are meant to be together and what (and who) their obstacles will be, which even extends to the secondary characters which conveniently follow parallel trajectories. Robbed from any sense of suspense or surprise the film plays out exactly like one would expect; the excitement is about on par with answering a mathematical problem: it is satisfying when it is resolved but does not exactly make one feel like Archimedes when he computed π.

 

Ostensibly, at least according to the plural contained in the title, the 700 brides are the topic of the film. But the film focuses too narrowly on Niki and her photographer and their problems to make this film a film about the appalling practices surrounding mail order brides. Instead, it is a film about two people who are too educated and righteous to do anything that God has forbidden, though God knows they want to. Judging by the lack of films about such people and the abundance of films about infidelity and marriage problems, the real drama is to be found elsewhere. A handful of brides in supporting roles feel forced and unnatural, which is also how the English language dialogue sounds (I suppose it was translated from the Greek script rather than originally written in English).

 

Technically, the film runs as smooth as any transatlantic ocean liner not named Titanic, with the direction and editing evoking the period as much as possible. This package creates a genuine feel for the times, which is more than just a colourful background to the story but rather an inherent part of it. It is too bad that the same attention to detail did not go into the characters and their plights.

 

 

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