A Film a Week - Elena's Shift

 previously published on Cineuropa

The financial crisis of 2008 hit differently from country to country, and lasted for varying amounts of time, but the common denominator in every one of those countries was that it exposed the internal corruption that plagued each of them. Greece was hit particularly hard: the crisis there lasted longer than in other nations countries, and unfortunately, it was the workers and the immigrants who paid the highest price for it.

Based on a true story, the debut feature by acclaimed Greek visual artist Stefanos Tsivopoulos, Elena’s Shift, is set at the tail end of the crisis, in 2013. It was presented last year at Tallinn Black Nights’ market as a work in progress, and it has just premiered in the festival’s First Feature Competition.

The title character (played by German-Romanian actress Maria Dragus, seen in a number of movies from The White Ribbon to R.M.N.) is a Romanian single mother living in Greece with her young son Luca (Filippos Sklikas) and working as a cleaner in the same company where her own mother, Ada (Rodica Lazar), used to work. When we meet her, she is trying to obtain Greek citizenship despite not actually needing to, but she fails in spite of her decent command of the language, and her understanding of the culture and society, because she has no Greek friends, as she spends most of her time with her family and with her colleagues, who are also predominantly immigrants. One of them, Maia (Macrina Balardeanu), keeps inviting her to try her luck in Germany, but both Luca and Ada are against the move.

The situation for Elena becomes even more complicated when she is informed that her contract will be cut short and will not be extended. Since she does not recall signing this type of contract, she turns to the trade union, where she meets lawyer Yota (Penelope Tsilika, glimpsed in Little England and Crimes of the Future), who provides a spark that lights her fire – in both an activist and a romantic sense. But can the two get along in a dog-eat-dog world where everybody is focused on prioritising their own interests?

In not wanting to burden the audience with the excessive legal or economic details of Elena’s woes, Tsivopoulos creates a different set of problems. In such a reading and re-telling of her situation, Elena’s troubles, desires and general predicament simply seem too vague and generic, so any real emotional impact in the third act falls flat. Style-wise, Elena’s Shift also falls in line with contemporary social-realist works, with shaky hand-held camerawork by Konstantinos Koukoulios that regularly utilises shallow focus, and slightly abrupt editing by Stamos Dimitropoulos. In this way, the authentic vibe of the under-furnished homes and busy metropolitan streets is conveyed without any flashy moves or by forcing us to wallow in misery.

However, the film’s greatest assets are its lead actresses, and Tsivopoulos knows it, so he usually frames them in close-up and in a series of reverse shots. This is especially the case for Maria Dragus, who is extremely dedicated to her role here, and the rest of the cast, especially Penelope Tsilika and Rodica Lazar, do their best to support her, but the trouble is that the script is simply too vague, so they need to improvise. The end result is satisfactory, but nothing more than that.