Meat

First-time director Dimitris Nakos thrusts a difficult situation upon middle-aged Takis (Akyllas Karazisis) when a heated feud ends in violence. As he prepares for the grand reopening of the small shop that he runs with his wife (Maria Kallimani), his son Pavlos (Pavlos Iordanopoulos) guns down their antagonistic neighbour (Dimitris Xanthopoulos) following a heated exchange. When Takis finds out what happened, he hatches a plan to convince hardworking employee Christos (Kostas Nikouli), whom he sees as a surrogate son, to take the fall to protect Pavlos. With Christos torn between what to do, Nakos follows the family navigate this predicament. While solid performances from the ensemble cast capture the ongoing drama, the tension never reaches its boiling point.

Shot in a handheld style, there’s a roughness to the presentation that gives the film a naturalistic feel, whilst the frantic movements between characters mirror the chaos gripping the familial unit. Karazisis is phenomenal as the patriarch who’s as concerned about preserving his own reputation within the village as he is protecting his own blood. His intensity is the direct opposite of Nikouli’s quietly constrained Christos, whose silence carries the weight of his moral dilemma. Comparatively, Iordanopoulos is left on the sidelines throughout most of the runtime despite Pavlos being the spark that blows the powder keg, and this is where the main issues of Meat lie.

Nakos explores a handful of intriguing questions throughout his script. However, these ideas rarely go anywhere. Alongside the on-the-nose metaphor of the family owning a slaughterhouse, the growing suspicion from some of the villagers towards Takis prods at the influence of small-town gossip while Christos’ status as an immigrant nudges the narrative towards themes of prejudice. These plot points may add to the dramatic stakes, but their barebones execution stops the tension from hitting their intended heights, ending this tragedy on an underwhelming finale.

A stellar core cast convey the nuanced drama within Nakos’ ambitious debut. Without fully developing its compelling ideas, however, Meat concludes on a disappointing low.

Andrew Murray

Meat does not have a release date yet.

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