SCULPED SOULS

Απρ 29, 2025 Κινηματογράφος 0

MOVIE REVIEW

THE EXAMPLE OF THE DENTIST

Sculped souls: by Giannis Fragoulis

We watched the film «Sculped souls», by Stavros Psyllakis, at the 27th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. The subject matter is such that it triggers the viewer’s emotions regarding the offer of a Swiss dentist to the chansenic patients in Greece. The director follows the line he has been drawing for many years. He mentions the subject, slowly enters into it and tries to draw the viewer’s attention both to the subject of his study and to the surrounding reality.

Sculped souls: The movie

It is a portrait of Gillien Grivel, a Swiss dentist who arrived in Greece in 1972 in order to take care of the teeth of a Hansen in Athens, at the Agia Varvara hospital. His coming to the country would underline his philhellenic feelings – he tells his story throughout the documentary in fluent Greek – but above all it would give meaning to his version of giving and «sharing».

Grivel would periodically return to the country to take care of the Hansen’s teeth for free, and would begin to develop relationships with Hansen who had lived both in Spinalonga and then in Elounda, himself a member of a society that had lived under the burden of an entire state’s indifference to one of the darkest pages of its modern history.

Sculped souls: The structures

Stavros Psyllakis lets Julien Grivel tell his story. His protagonist picks up the thread of his story and leads it into the realm of history as a general concept. There the narrative landscape is transformed. His own story becomes a narrative about the community of these patients and then about their treatment in Greece, followed by modern Greek history.

All of this can be structured in the editing. The director has little historical narratives, material to build his own narrative. What he wants is to make a portrait. Then he wants to graft it with these elements that will turn the portrait into a historical narrative about Greece and the philhellenic movement. He succeeds by making short narrative texts that unfold the historical narrative and give the film a rhythm.

Sculped souls: The suggestions

In this way we have its articulation and, at the same time, it creates windows for the viewer’s interest to escape to side issues that weave the historical web that includes the life of the person we are watching, the history of Greece in modern times, and the narrative of the global community that has to do with the contact of citizens of other countries with the Greek reality.

Gillien Grivel is modest, simple, and without exaggeration reports what he lived. His story is told by people who have come into contact with him, giving their own perspective. We follow a world that grows and envelops the viewer. We enter, in this way, into the story that the film tells and then the whole thing is transformed once again: we are no longer dealing only with the Hansenians and Gillien Greville, but with situations we have lived through, thus making our own story, the narrative of human sensitivity to human suffering.

Sculped souls: The cinematic characteristics

The highlight of the film is the moment when Gillien Grivel discovers that in the hotel where he has been staying for as long as he has been coming to Athens, there is a wing with his name on it. He feels proud, touched, he receives the return of his offer without having sought it. It is the moments with his wife that give us a picture of humanity, sensitivity and love.

The lens of Stavros Psyllakis discreetly monitors everything that happens. He is like an observer who prefers to record and then reconstruct the story. This is the way the director has been creating his films for years. It all ends in the editing, as in all films, but here the editing is the second stage direction. Stavros Psyllakis creates rhythm in the film by quoting elements of different durations, others with less or more emotional intensity, creating a chord of emotions that he simply offers to the viewer. He has to take them and reconstruct the story in his mental world. Thus, the film survives after the screening for quite some time, remaining in the social sphere as a remarkable event.

SCULPED SOULS

Directed by Stavros Psyllakis

Screenwriter: Stavros Psyllakis

Photography: Manolis Leventelis, Michalis Geranios

Editing: Stavros Psyllakis, Spyros Kokkas

Music: Yannis Haroulis

Sound: Kostas Kosmadakis, Petros Smyrlis, Vangelis Fabas

Producers: Matthew Frantzeskakis

Production country: Greece

Year of production: 2025

Colour: colour

Language: greek