Greek Film Noir

An impressive array of scholarship on a topic that a few years ago would have been deemed inconceivable. While, as the authors and editors demonstrate, noir sensibility is evident in Greek cinema as early as the 1950s, its trajectory developed in the critical shadows. This collection honours this elusive breed of films, reassessing established accounts of Greek film history and firmly placing the cinema of this small nation within broader transnational contexts. -- Lydia Papadimitriou, Liverpool John Moores University
The trio of scholars who have put together “Greek Film Noir,” Anna Poupou, Nikitas Fessas, and Maria Chalkou, are keenly aware of what the critic and historian Robert Hughes referred to as “cultural cringe” — the perception that one’s own culture is somehow behind the curve of other countries or peoples. “The study of Greek film noir,” the trio write, “is directly linked to how Greeks see themselves as part of an increasingly dystopian landscape.” In so many words: The world’s going to hell and we want in. -- Mario Naves * The New York Sun *