Half an acre measures just over one-third the size of an American football field. But it’s enough land that a dispute over its ownership leads to deadly consequences in Dmitris Nakos’ domestic, slow burn thriller Meat. The filmmaker’s feature debut carves off the fat, and throws a steadily screw-tightening story about fathers, sons, and debts into a hot cast iron pan for a mostly satisfying sizzle.
Takis (Akyllas Karazisis) is the hard-working head of his family and has fought tooth and nail for everything he’s had. On the eve of opening on a new butcher shop in the small, Greek town where he resides, his neighbor, recently sprung from prison and out on parole, wastes no time in challenging Takis over a claim of half an acre of farmland. The dispute, which goes back at least a generation, starts at a boil and quickly turns into a conflagration leading to Takis’ hot-headed and dimwitted son Pavlos (Pavlos Iordanopoulos), taking matters — and a rifle — into his own hands. Soon, a body is buried, and Takis, scrambling to protect Pavlos, launches a scheme so Christos (Kostas Nikouli), a longtime Albanian employee and practically a son and brother of the family, will take the fall. Of course, try as he might to force his best laid plans and maintain control over his empire, Takis soon sees blood and soil run through his fingers.
Thoughtfully worked out on the page, Nakos’ screenplay is not interested in setting up a whodunit, so much as exploring the unending chain reaction of murder. As Takis works to assuage his concerned and weary wife Eleni (Maria Kallimani), dodge a cop navigating his way toward solving the crime, and appease a blackmailer who has stumbled upon the truth, what emerges is an entire community where one hand has been washing the other for far too long. Years of neighbors and authorities looking the other way in exchange for cash and favors now have to contend with a dead man in their midst. Try as he might to cash in the chips he’s accumulated, Takis begins to see that when self-preservation takes reign, all bets are off on the loyalties he once took for granted.
However, the intricate and fragile bonds of community that Nakos’ intriguingly draws are undermined by the cinematography of Giorgos Valsamis. Utilizing a handheld camera that would make Paul Greengrass queasy, one presumes the intimacy of that choice was made to underline the urgency facing Takis, and the gravity of the decision Christos contends with as he considers shouldering the blame in exchange for a heap of cash when he’s out of prison. One wishes Valsamis had just invested in a tripod. The shaky cam is more distracting than engaging, making the film’s build to a tragic but inevitable emotional chord, just a bit less resonant. The same goes for the guitar driven score by Konstantis Pistiolis, which feels just slightly off register and a bit too crude for a picture that offers far more nuance than a straightforward genre piece.
Nevertheless, Nakos impresses in his feature debut. Meat displays a firm understanding of the sometimes craven motivations of ambitious men and the claustrophobia of small towns where your business is everybody else’s too. The filmmaker also has an acute awareness of how easily families can fall apart when put into a pressure cooker. With the crime exposing Takis’ longtime resentment and disappointment in Pavlos like an open wound, that pain becomes another victim in Meat. It’s one laid bare for all to see, and it might just be as deadly as any bullet or as long-lasting as any jail sentence.
Director: Dimitris Nakos
Screenplay: Dimitris Nakos
Cast: Kostas Nikouli, Akyllas Karazisis, Pavlos Iordanopoulos, Maria Kallimani, Giorgos SymeonidisProducers: Thanos Anastopoulos
Cinematography: Giorgos Valsamis
Production design: Kyriaki Tsitsa
Costume design: Vasileia Rozana
Editing: Lampis Haralampidis
Music: Konstantis Pistiolis
Sound: Nikos Exarchos
Production companies: Fantasia Ltd (Greece), Greek Film Centre (Greece), ERT S.A. Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (Greece), Foss Productions (Greece), Dimitris Nakos (Greece), EKOME (Greece)
Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Discovery)
In Greek, Albanian
104 minutes
