Where is the limit between fiction and reality in a documentary? How does one compose the portrait of a dear friend when he has stepped into the hereafter? In her recent documentary “Kostis Papagiorgis: The Sweetest Misanthrope“, director Eleni Alexandrakis portrays Kostis Papagiorgis, an important essayist and translator. Avoiding sentimentality, her film is a refreshing exercise of intertextuality, in which excerpts of his texts along with testimonies coming from important representatives of the Greek intellectual scene compose an image of the late essayist.
Eleni Alexandrakis was born in Athens in 1957. She studied film at the Sorbonne University, Paris I and at the National Film and TV School of England. She has written, directed and produced several fiction films and documentaries, among which: “A Drop in the Ocean” (fiction, 1995), “Easter is in the air” (documentary, 1999) “The Woman who longed for Home” (fiction, 2004) “Angel and the Weightlifter” (fiction, 2008). She has received several prizes in Greece and abroad.
Alexandrakis talked to Greek News Agenda* about her latest documentary “Kostis Papagiorgis: The Sweetest Misanthrope” (2018) that won the Greek Association of Critics Award at the 20th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. As there was scarce visual material of Papagiorgis, Alexandrakis stresses the difficulty of composing his image from scratch based on the testimonies of the intellectuals, artists and people close to him. A dear friend of his and his wife, Alexandrakis says she was compelled to reread his books after his death, which was the inspiration for the film. Alexandrakis also talks about the inextricable link between his course of life and spiritual evolution which is reflected in his works.
Photo of Kostis Papagiorgis in “Kostis Papagiorgis: The Sweetest Misanthrope” (2018)
Your documentary undertakes the difficult task of visualizing the absence of an important intellectual like Kostis Papagiorgis. Papagiorgis avoided appearing in the media. How did you deal with the absence of visual material depicting him?
Kostis Papagiorgis avoided self-exhibition like the plague, so one can’t find any live pictures of him anywhere. The only live images that exist and that I used in my documentary are various home movies, and some silent shots of him that Nikos Perrakis had filmed in 1994 for his documentary “Polis” (shots that he ultimately never included in the his film). So I had to compose a jigsaw puzzle of Kostis’ personality through the images that his texts inspired in me, combined with the words of the people who knew him. That was extremely challenging for me as I felt that I was rebuilding his image from scratch and that I was creating a ‘musical score’ of the ‘notes’ that compose his life. Intellectuals, artists, relatives or ordinary working people added their own touches to the portrait.
What prompted you to do this film and what was the influence of your friendship with him on the final product?
I was friends for 20 years with Kostis Papagiorgis and his wife Rania. Missing him after his death plunged me into rereading his books so as to “bring him back” or, at least, to shorten the distance between us and the “beyond”. Very soon, without realizing it, I started imagining a film, which was inspired by his words. I was also impressed to discover, in a different way now, how similar his life was to his writings. Without being autobiographical he writes about life and the “human condition” through his own experience with an incredibly clear insight. His texts are very personal, he has a very particular use of language and his approach to passion and philosophy is totally unconventional. The fact that I was seeing his features so clearly in his books gave me the urge to narrate in a film the story of his life through his thinking.
“Kostis Papagiorgis: The Sweetest Misanthrope” (2018)
Although Papagiorgis did not pursue an academic education, he attended philosophy courses freely during his stay in France. To what extent do you feel that this “French period” influenced him?
Papagiorgis was self-taught as he always despised academic education and positions. He was too much of a rebel to be a classic student. He had such self-discipline and a brilliant mind that