How far would you go to get everything you ever wanted? Would you hurt the people you love? Would you come to love the people you hurt? Would you sacrifice your mind, your sanity, your reality?

Subversive and entirely indulgent in the craft of theatre, Brando with a Glass Eye warps the line between performance and reality. The Greek-language movie follows a method actor, Luca (Yannis Niarros), who lives in Athens with his brother Alekos (Kostas Nikouli). Luca receives a call from an acting studio in New York to audition for their prestigious training program. Too poor to afford the flight, he and Alekos attempt a masked robbery that fatally injures a passer-by. Worried the man may identify him, Luca tracks down the victim, Ilias (Alexandros Chrysanthopoulos), and unintentionally forms a friendship. The majority of the film tracks Luca’s relationship with Ilias, a stark contrast between poor and rich, capricious and blasé.

The movie’s opening scene sets a self-reflexive tone for the rest of the film. Niarros descends a staircase, addresses the audience directly, and points a paper gun at the camera. He tells us what we are about to see is a performance. He enters a home, dissolves his gun in water, and morphs into Luca. The movie is intentionally theatrical, loaded with references to other films and filmmakers. The title itself references American actor Marlon Brando, and peppers references to classic plays and films through the dialogue and scenes. The shots weave in and out of Stella Adler lectures that relentlessly blare on the brothers’ living room television, and monologues recall Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.

Luca’s relationships become increasingly muddled as he slips in and out of characters. He seizes inspiration as it hits, spurring random bouts of method acting that lead his peers to question his sanity. As these become more and more frequent — including a birthday party where his ‘gift’ to the host is himself “as close to death as possible” — the distinction between acting and genuine connection begins to blur. As we learn more about his family history and the sadness that underscores his life, we begin to see that acting is perhaps the only joy in his life. Niarris brings a grand and transcendent performance to the movie, tying together the character’s mental state and only supported by Nikouli and Chrysanthopoulos.

Brando’s whimsy is perhaps the most underrated part of the movie. Filled with cut-scenes of Luca’s method acting, costume parties, and drug-induced hallucinations, the filmography, character and set design, and music birth a diverse and captivating storyline. Whilst the continuity of the storyline may have been compromised, such diverse sequences side-by-side feel like a praline assortment, giving the audience a tiny taste of fantasia in a unique yet decadent package. The finger gun fight scene stands out in particular. As Luca and Ilias play make-believe in the Zappeion Exhibition Hall, we see them emerging, and vanishing: over the black and white of the checkered floor, weaving between the columns, in a bopping repetition of appearance and disappearance. With grand music in the background, the audience is reminded that Athens was indeed the birthplace of theatre. If you enjoyed Black Swan, you will enjoy this similarly eccentric, tragic story that tracks an obsessed artist, and the collapse of his sanity.

source: honisoit.com