What If...

2012 [GREEK]

Drama / Romance

IMDb Rating 6.9/10 10 8928 8.9K

Director

Christopher Papakaliatis Photo
Christopher Papakaliatis

Top cast

Christopher Papakaliatis Photo
Christopher Papakaliatis as Dimitris
Marina Kalogirou Photo
Marina Kalogirou as Hristina
Akilas Karazisis Photo
Akilas Karazisis as Panagiotis
Themis Bazaka Photo
Themis Bazaka as Dimitris' Mother

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by llaertis 7 / 10

Strong Emotions

Being a Greek myself i must say i'm pretty disappointed by Greece's efforts towards the seventh art the last couple of decades. Unfortunately Greece's golden age, in my opinion, stopped at late 70's to early 80's. However this, i must say, is a sparkle in the mud of the industry. Christoforos Papakaliatis being a director, writer and leading actor did a fine job being all three of them. He conducted a modern movie touching sensitive matters in Greece nowadays, like unemployment does, mixing them with the never aging love cliché. What matters in the end are the emotions you have leaving the movie, and those were strong.
Reviewed by stermix501 8 / 10

surprisingly good

Reviewed by costaspap 7 / 10

The butterfly effect and the parallel worlds of "An..."

In his "Notebooks", the famous conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler doesn't make much effort to conceal his dislike for Art critics. He likens the creator of Art with Faust and the critic with Mephistopheles, saying about the latter that, whatever is born of love, he considers worthy of extinction! He also notes that the main concern of the critic is to identify the "errors" in the work of Art, often failing to recognize the greatness of a true masterpiece. Furtwängler's remarks came to my mind while observing the anxious efforts by movie critics to discover and point out the "errors" in "An...", the first feature film by Greek director Christoforos Papakaliatis (Greece, 2012). I must confess that I myself entered the theater with reservations. Would this prove to be just another cinematic experiment from one more director of television shows who fails to see the difference between the two-dimensional flat space of TV and the much more complex space-time of the cinema? The result of the "experiment" was a pleasant surprise! We saw an authentic cinematic creation, skillfully directed and possessing a brilliantly self-consistent (albeit not entirely original) script worked well in the details. With regard to the central idea of the film, the influence from the now classic "Sliding Doors" (1998) is more than evident. Like the latter film, "An..." is a cinematic allegory on the "butterfly effect", that is, how a seemingly insignificant detail may dramatically change the order of things and the fate of people. We thus watch two alternative versions of reality evolve in parallel in time by means of two different dominoes of causality. One basic theme is romantic relationships and their test against deterioration caused by the everyday routine in a typical marriage. Reference is made, of course, to the current economic crisis, this being one of the catalytic factors affecting relationships. Eventually, the film leaves it upon the viewer to decide which version of reality suits best to her/him, hinting, however, at the more optimistic choice (remember "Sliding Doors"!). We left the theater with feelings of internal catharsis that any true work of Art must induce. Leaving behind for good the painful memories from the merciless (albeit directorially brilliant) "Amour" that plainly shows brutal reality without the much-needed psychological balance offered by the potentially alternative...
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