a bird that disappeared in the heart of a bourgeois villa

THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – WHY NOT

Since Attack of the Giant Moussaka (1999), a pochade farces cobbled together like hell, the delirious cinema of the Greek Panos H. Koutras has undoubtedly lost, over time, something of its mad exuberance. His last feature film, Dodo, attests to this in its own way. His madness is concentrated in the title bird – a species that disappeared at the end of the 17th century.e century –, reconstituted here in the form of a crazy digital beast, tumbling into a large bourgeois villa to crackle at all costs, lay eggs in the fireplace and plaster the parquet floor with droppings.

On the outskirts of Athens, former hit TV soap actress Mariella (Smaragda Karydi) and her semi-skilled businessman husband Pavlos (Akis Sakellariou) set up their lavish estate to celebrate their daughter’s marriage of convenience. Sophia, dedicated to bailing out their empty coffers. Neither money nor desire circulates any more in this flu-ridden home, around which gathers for the occasion a heterogeneous team of secondary characters (a squealing organizer, a Syrian immigrant, a trans prostitute, a young schemer, a few servants… ). It is in this bowling game that the famous bird arrives, whose aberrant presence not only reveals to everyone his imposture, but also unravels the relationships bringing together this small world.

family stories

The family stories, with their inexhaustible web of lies, things left unsaid, repressions, secret motives, hiccups and rework, therefore constitute the film’s raw material, the very material that occupies so many soap operas. With its characters beyond the stereotype, led to go beyond the caricature they embody, the film claims to give an exaggerated and paroxysmal version.

But its lengthy developments, its muffled meetings, its madness diluted in the whole narrative and above all its unimaginative filming justified by a vague added value cinema complete the set in the ruts of a soothing first degree, of which Dodo never quite takes off.

Greek, French and Belgian film by Panos H. Koutras. With Smaragda Karydi, Akis Sakellariou, Natasa Exintaveloni, Marisha Triantafyllidou (2 h 12).

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