Interview: Green Sea director Angeliki Antoniou

Directed by Angeliki Antoniou, Green Sea is the story of Anna, a woman struggling with memory loss, who finds work as a cook at a seaside tavern and creates meals for locals to enjoy. The film is playing at the Sydney Film Festival and on demand. Addy Fong spoke to Angeliki:

I just wanted to clarify whether Green Sea is an adaptation of a book?  

The film Green Sea is not based upon the novel, it’s inspired by the novel from Virginia. Virginia’s an acclaimed Greek writer and I used the main idea that a woman with no memory finds himself in a Tavern, cooking for worker somewhere far away from Athens, yes. 

How was it adapting the source material into the script? 

This was very difficult. I tried at the beginning, because he’s a good writer and she’s a well-known bestseller writer. So, I tried to keep many things from her book, her novel. After the first draft or the second draft, I noticed that there were a lot of problems with the dramaturgy. There was a repetition and I had to avoid this. I had to create a new traumatology and decided to change many things and forget many things. I asked her is it possible that I don’t use this, and we create this, and she said, ‘Yes, do what you want to do’. She was very generous, but since she knew about my previous films, she trusted me. Even when I finished with the film’s script, I told her, ‘You do you want to read the script?’ She said, ‘No, you go’. She’s a very generous person. You know most writers they want to check. They want to have the control and for her it was very important that I kept amnesia that the woman lost her memory, wandering around, working in a strange place trading with strange regulars and a strange owner. 

I understood that Anna’s character lost her memory, but it also felt like she lost something else. Like a grief or a sadness, she had.

This woman lost her memory, and I must tell you that this is autobiographical because it happened to the author who wrote the novel. She had a brain aneurysm like Anna. I can’t say that she lost her memory, she could recognise herself her previous life. She was shocked and lost psychologically and for me in my film, Anna lost her memory, and we see it in a short flashback that when she falls. You know this is a brain aneurysm, brain injuries like a blood vessel. It fills with blood and can happen suddenly without symptoms and people who get this can die if they don’t have an immediate surgery. For me it is the result of a psychological pressure.  Anna is working alone, she’s a lonely person. I think it’s the result of a psychological pressure. All the sickness is we get are the results of psychological pressure. I think it’s connected. She works too much with her head with her brained and less with her body.  For me it’s not an accident she gets sick.

Is there a significance in your use of the colour green in the film?

It is a good question, because I didn’t name the film Blue Sea but Green Sea. Green for me is a more optimistic colour, it’s the colour of nature as well like trees. It is something optimistic and when they say that the Egyptians didn’t sail the Green Sea it means they didn’t have the courage, although they were skillful. To sail the Green Sea is to sail the sea of courage, to open with feelings. I use green because of that because of optimism of opening feelings.

There’s a scene in the film where the tavern owner is forcing Anna to eat cause the food is bitter. Can you talk about the use of food in the film and memory?  

Anna cooks traditional meals. Simple, traditional meals with good ingredients, these are traditional and simple meals, but they are very delicious. She prepares them carefully and with love. These meals create memories to the regulars and this very important for me that this woman, cooks. Simple traditional Greek foods and creates memories for the people that was a contradiction. A woman with no memory creates producing positive memories for the regulars. Roula doesn’t (The Tavern owner) forces her to eat her own meal because she has cooked a bitter meal, he knows she hates the situation that people eat and they have memories and she cannot remember, you know it’s a revenge action of hers. So, when she sees all these people having a fun, nice time and enjoying the meals there comes a moment when she’s jealous of them and she decides to make something bad.  I think it’s very interesting, because if she’s only good it’s boring.

Can you talk about the use of sound in the film? The tavern owner Roula really hates music is there a particular reason? 

A woman comes to a place where the owner hates music. Roula’s a lonely, unpredictable guy who lives in silence. He has no hope for his life. He doesn’t care about his tavern and he barely functions. He has a dog and is very silent he doesn’t like the music in his place. We cannot forget he was a musician, but he didn’t succeed with this art. He was a talented musician, and he didn’t make it, so he doesn’t want to listen to music. He’s somebody who is don’t believe in anything. He’s down and depressed. There is a little bit of music at the beginning. We thought of using no music for the film, but we thought it’s very interesting to use music for what happens in the story because she cannot remember. We used music and the music begins with her when she slowly begins to remember or tries to remember. We use the music, yes, but at the beginning it’s really. We didn’t use the music, it’s just some sound or music elements, but the composition of the music began after the first part of the film.

At the end of film there’s the text that says In Memory of Chrisa Spilioti. Who was she and what was her significance to you? 

She was my best friend in Athens. She was a very talented gifted actress, a wonderful woman, a very good playwright as well. We loved her. There were fires in Attica and she died with husband together. 

Oh no. Did you say fires? I’m so sorry to hear that 

Yes. Well, you see she had been at my apartment on Friday and on Monday, she was dead. It is true. It is horrible and that’s why the film is dedicated to her. She would have played role of the publisher at the end of the film; the role was a guest role for her. Anyway, it was not possible because she died before we shot so I gave this part to another good friend of ours.

Has creating this film helped you with processing what happened? It’s just very hard creating art like as a creator as a filmmaker with this happening.  

Yes, it is, but you know, I mean I cannot talk about this as it’s very painful because if it happened suddenly. When you lose somebody because of a fire it is something else. If you know somebody is sick and has cancer or health problems, [it’s different] to if you suddenly lose somebody who is healthy.

It’s a shock.

But anyway I read the Epicurean and all these historic philosophers. You know, our friends, our families, their children, our relatives, they don’t belong to us. Every day we should be ready to confront ourselves with this. I wasn’t, but you never know when it when it happens. The person, the people we love, they don’t belong us. We never know when we will lose them, or when they will lose us. Green Sea is dedicated to Chrisa my beloved friend, I don’t know where she is now, but it would be great if she could see this film and talk with me, she was always strict with my films. We had a very good and big fights because we both are very creative. We helped each other write and she acted for me, and I lost a very good friend, not just a good friend but I lost an advisor. 

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Green Sea is playing at the Sydney Film Festival and on demand, for information, go here.

Interview by Addy Fong.