John the Violent

John the Violent (Greek: Ιωάννης ο Βίαιος, Ioannis o Viaios) is a 1973 black and white Greek film starring Manolis Logiadis in his role as Ioannis Zachos, a young psychopath who murders a woman in Athens.[1] The award-winning film was directed by Tonia Marketaki. The film impressed the audience at the Thessaloniki film festival upon its release in 1973 where it was awarded three of the top prizes.[2][3] The film is based on an actual murder which happened in Athens in the 1960s and created a media sensation at the time.[4][5]

John the Violent
Directed byTonia Marketaki
Produced byTonia Marketaki
Written byTonia Marketaki
StarringManolis Logiadis, Mika Flora, Vangelis Kazan
Release date
  • September 1973 (1973-09)
Running time
180 minutes
CountryGreece
LanguageGreek

Plot

Ioannis Zachos is a psychopath who fantasises about killing beautiful women as a means to validate his manhood and to feel a sense of empowerment. He stalks the empty streets of Athens at night looking for victims. In one of those outings he enters a small sidestreet and at around midnight he sees a young woman, Eleni Chalkia, whom he attacks stabbing her to death. After the murder he disappears into the darkness.[6]

A murder investigation eventually leads to his arrest. During interrogation he readily confesses his crime to the police to their great relief, since their investigation had come under fire for its perceived faults. In the ensuing trial, the psychopath freely admits his guilt but during his testimony he falls into contradictions. It becomes apparent that the murderer bases his testimony on reports he reads from the newspapers which cover his criminal trial.[4][6]

Zachos may be a deviant psychopath but he possesses eloquence, grace, charisma and above-average intelligence which make him attractive to the trial audience, the judges, the press and the psychiatrists. He soon becomes a "social icon" through the everyday reports of the press.[4]

He is articulate in describing his violent tendencies in the context of an indifferent, cold society and explains that he uses violence as a means to achieve catharsis.[6] He freely admits that the murder was senseless and served no purpose but he explains that he feels pressured and trapped within society and that he committed the murder to obtain a sense of relief.[4]

He is a hedonist and he feels pleasure for being guilty and then pleasure for admitting his guilt, an act which he considers his way of presenting his own "truth" and being honest. Finally, as soon as society accepts his guilt, he feels the pleasure of atonement.[7]

His appeal and articulate and sincere-sounding descriptions of his motives and actions within the confines and context of society, resonate with the youth of the era. He presents himself as a "trapped soul" seeking relief from the burdens of society. The youth believe that his descriptions express their own deeper needs and frustrations and they become enthralled with him.[4]

The relatives of the victim do not appear eager to defend her memory as they try to play-up their role at the trial and vie for the attention of the mass media. The murderer is found not guilty by reason of insanity. He is sentenced to life incarceration in a psychiatric hospital.[4][6] The film in the end leaves an open question as to who is the real guilty party, the individual or society.[6] The plot is based on the actual murder case of Maria Bavea (Greek: Μαρία Μπαβέα) in 1963.[8]

Reception

Angelos Rouvas in his book Greek Cinema mentions that Tonia Marketaki's film explores the underlying reasons which cause alienated and lonely people living in large cities to become psychologically disturbed individuals who can then commit violent crimes.[9]

Film critic Achilleas Kyriakides compares Marketaki's techniques in the film, to Richard Brooks's direction of In Cold Blood.[7] Kyriakides describes how Marketaki's lens wonders at the beginning of the film like a "ghost in the streets of an ugly city, wondering among the apartments of a rudderless society" and contrasts it to the claustrophobic and frantic action of the second part, where the lens moves in flashbacks during the reconstruction of the crime scene and leads the audience from one place to another; moving from the jail cell, to the court, to the murder scene and the psychiatric wards.[7]

He comments that in Marketaki's film the truths are all over the place, but that the Truth is absent and compares it to Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon.[7] According to Kyriakides, Marketaki's technique is to present the elements of her film like a puzzle, where the pieces she supplies fit in a larger mosaic but comments that the picture of the mosaic is never revealed in its entirety. The film ends abruptly, as if it puts an end to its own life, in a final, violent act.[7]

I Avgi quotes film critic Aglaia Mitropoulou who comments that Marketaki does not use the crime as a reason to create a crime drama but instead she analyses and explores the whole social environment and the reasons behind the crime using the same type of methodology that Norman Mailer and Jean-Pierre Jeunet follow in their films.[3] I Avgi also comments that the film explores the theatrical aspects behind justice and its law processes and the psychology of the absurd as applied to the Greek society of the 1960s.[10]

Cast
  • Manolis Logiadis as Ioannis Zachos
  • Mika Flora as Eleni Chalkia[11]
  • Vangelis Kazan as Captain Giannopoulos
  • Malaina Anousaki as Mrs. Chalikia
  • Costas Arzoglou as Christos Christoforidis
  • Dimitris Bikiropoulos
  • Takis Doukatos (as T. Doukakos)
  • Nikos Glavas
  • Minas Hatzisavvas as Dr. Pannopoulos
  • Costas Messaris
  • Mary Metaxa as grandmother
  • Yorgos Partsalakis
  • Lida Protopsalti
  • Nikitas Tsakiroglou
  • Kostas Tsakonas
  • Thanassis Valtinos
  • Zozo Zarpa as Kontantina Stavrianou
  • Kostas Ziogas

Awards

The film was awarded the following prizes at the 14th Thessaloniki International Film Festival in 1973:[6][12]

  • Direction
  • Plot
  • Male leading role
  • Honourable distinction

Release

The film was released in Greece in September 1973.

References
  1. John Flowers; Paul Frizler (2004). Psychotherapists on Film, 1899–1999: A Worldwide Guide to Over 5000 Films. McFarland & Company Incorporated Pub. ISBN 978-0-7864-1297-6. John the Violent. aka Ioannis O Viaios. 1973, Greece, 180 min. Director: Tonia Marketaki. Screenplay: Tonia Marketaki. Cast: Manolis Loy- ades, John the Violent. A lunatic, John, kills a girl among other acts of madness and is apprehended by ...
  2. Aglaïa Mētropoulou; Maria Komnēnou (2006). Hellēnikos kinēmatographos. Ekdoseis Papazēsē. p. 304. Το 1973, το Φεστιβάλ Θεσσαλονίκης βλέπει με ευχάριστη έκπληξη την πρώτη μεγάλου μήκους ταινία της Μαρκετάκη,Ιωάννης ο βίαιος, που κερδίζει το βραβείο σκηνοθεσίας, σεναρίου και πρώτου αντρικού ρόλου. Τι ήταν αυτός ο Ιωάννης,...
  3. Τροφή για σκέψη, Πνοή για ζωή: Τώνια Μαρκετάκη. Avgi (in Greek). 18 November 2011.
  4. Ακροβατώντας στο ... παράλογο. Rizospastis (in Greek). Τρίτη 1 Δεκέμβρη 2009. p. 38. Retrieved 7 April 2013. Σε πραγματικά γεγονότα της δεκαετίας του '60, όπου η έρευνα για τη δολοφονία μιας νεαρής γυναίκας καταλήγει σε προσβολή της μνήμης της, καθώς όλοι οι μάρτυρες ενδιαφέρονται για την προβολή τους στα μέσα μαζικής επικοινωνίας, ενώ ο άνθρωπος που ομολόγησε το φόνο της γίνεται κοινωνικό είδωλο, μέσα απ' τις σελίδες των εφημερίδων, βασίζεται η πρώτη ταινία της Τώνιας Μαρκετάκη «Ιωάννης ο βίαιος». Translation: On real events of the decade of the '60s, where the search for the murder of a young woman leads to an insult to her memory, since all witnesses are interested in their promotion in the mass media, while the man who confessed to her murder becomes social icon, through the pages of newspapers, is based the first film of Tonia Marketaki "John the Violent" Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. "Παραγγελιά": Θρυλική ταινία ναι αλλά... Ο χρόνος ανέδειξε τις ατέλειες μιας υπερεκτιμημένης ταινίας. To Vima (in Greek). 23 September 2011. «Ιωάννης ο βίαιος» της Τώνιας Μαρκετάκη έκανε αίσθηση ακριβώς επειδή άντλησε το θέμα της από μια τραγωδία που έκανε τρομερό θόρυβο στις εφημερίδες και γενικότερα στα Μέσα Μαζικής Ενημέρωσης. Translation: John the Violent of Tonia Marketaki caused a sensation exactly due to the fact that it drew its subject from a tragedy which caused a huge uproar in the press and more generally in the mass media
  6. Φιλμογραφία ΙΩΑΝΝΗΣ Ο ΒΙΑΙΟΣ (in Greek). Tainiothiki.
  7. Αχιλλέας Κυριακίδης. "Η ΠΡΑΞΗ ΤΗΣ ΖΩΗΣ ΚΑΙ Η ΠΡΑΞΗ ΤΗΣ ΤΕΧΝΗΣ". Retrieved 7 April 2013.
  8. "Ioannis o Viaios" (in Greek). cinegreece. Archived from the original on 24 August 2014.
  9. Angelos Rouvas (2005). Ελληνικος κινηματογραφος: 1971–2005. Ελληνικα Γραμματα. p. 84. Η Τώνια Μαρκετάκη στην ταινία της Ιωάννης ο Βίαιος στρέφει το ενδιαφέρον στη μοναξιά των ατόμων που ζουν στις μεγάλες πόλεις, διερευνώντας τα αίτια που τους μεταλλάσσουν σε ψυχικά διαταραγμένα άτομα, έτοιμα να διαπράξουν τις πιο ...
  10. Πρωτοπόρος ως γυναίκα, δημιουργός της πρωτοπορίας. Avgi (in Greek). 18 November 2011. Ήταν ένα φιλμ για τη θεατρικότητα του νόμου, την ψυχολογία του παραλόγου στο κοινωνικό πεδίο της δεκαετίας του '60.
  11. "Mika Flora bio". cine.gr.
  12. "14o Φεστιβάλ Ελληνικού Κινηματογράφου (Βραβεία 1973) ΒΡΑΒΕΙΑ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΟΥ ΚΙΝΗΜΑΤΟΓΡΑΦΟΥ" (in Greek). Φεστιβάλ Ελληνικού Κινηματογράφου.
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