See You In Hell, My Darling (1999)

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Director: Nikos Nikolaidis

Screenplay: Nikos Nikolaidis

Cast: Vicky Harris as Elsa; Valeria Christodoulidou as Vera; Paschalis Tsarouhas as The Dead Man

Synopsis: Living in a purgatory all within a large house, childhood friends Vera (Valeria Christodoulidou) and Elsa (Vicky Harris) are struggling with their memories of before, a heist which ended poorly and returns back to them issues of jealously and animosity between the two women. It grows as the body in the pool (Paschalis Tsarouhas) starts walking around, a man both women are attracted to. That Elsa is still interested in the money they have adds to the growing tensions.

Nikos Nikolaidis is sadly an obscure secret. All the transgressive "New Weird" of Greek cinema that came to be in the 2000s, not just Yorgos Lanthimos but even subtler films like Chevaliar (2015) owes a debt to him. The differences between the sides is that Nikolaidis was a stylist, rejecting the cinema verité of the later directors in favour of exaggeration in style as much as content, a director of the sixties and seventies onwards who is chameleonic in production and unpredictable in what each film will be like, whilst still driven by clear obsessions. Sadly only one film of his has had availability and attention to it in a larger scale outside Greece, and is still obscure for many. Thankfully that film was Singapore Sling (1990), his infamous genre hybrid which could be seen as just a shock film - possessing violence, nudity, vomiting, BDSM, inappropriate rubbing with a kiwi fruit - were it not also a film noir pastiche with beautiful monochrome cinematography to die for. Skip over the end of the nineties and See You In Hell, My Darling rifts on that film's structure as a continuation. Two women, one man, some of the straight-to-camera monologues of the older film also by the actresses in character, but different still. Shot in colour and looking like a late nineties erotic thriller, but as with his other films, utterly against any predictable expectations.

The film never explicitly states where it is set. "Purgatory" is the only to describe where Vera and Elsa are, a place entirely confined to one house and a beach where moments of the unnatural puncture its nocturnal realm, the only other characters baring them and Paschalis Tsarouhas' role being a brief cameo by creepy, masked ambulance attendants, the environment aside from them  existing outside of mortal life. Flashbacks, in video, of a heist that went sour suggest as much, still tied down by the weight of their lives before. Vera encumbered by constant nausea and vomiting, Elsa obsessed with a jealously and continued desire for the money they acquired. Their beau played by Tsarouhas comes back in spite of having floated face down in the swimming pool for a long while, adding further tensions. From there it's difficult to define See You In Hell, My Darling as it plays not with large scale plot twists but small emotional dynamics over its length.

From https://i.ytimg.com/vi/R_xz3tNPLpw/maxresdefault.jpg

This is also where you realise why a film like and Nikolaidis' other work is likely been neglected so far despite the small cult around him. Singapore Sling was helped by a level of infamy, whilst still obscure. See You In Hell, My Darling is just as sexual, nudity and moments evoking a sensual relationship between the main female characters, but the story is more subjective. It's the type of film that's only starting to get more appreciated now the availability of cinema is slowly widening, not a film you can work out by simple big plot twists nor based on a simplistic drama as many mainstream art films. As a result you have to work with a more expressionist experience. Nikolaidis is an openly transgressive director and a corporal one obsessed with the human body in its form - thus someone goes to the bathroom only to puke up in response to the awful thing they witness - but he is also someone who likes his characters to be fluctuating. Morally grey figures who evolve and change over time, behaving in ways more realistic to the viewer themselves even if some of their acts are utterly surreal, not genre stock behaviour that are easy to archetype.

With this in mind, the performances from the main actresses especially are compelling. Vicky Harris and Valeria Christodoulidou have to do the heavy lifting for the film with only one other actor to work with. This is particularly a success as, exactly like Singapore Sling, they dominate the screen even if acting out scenes which be seen as tasteless or the director being a dirty old man if there wasn't a strength of conviction to their performances, allowing the pair to make such scenes make sense in the moment and far from contrived, dominating the screen and forcing us the viewer to follow them. This connects See You In Hell, My Darling to other later works of directors like Walerian Borowczyk or Andrei Zulawski, later pictures in their filmographies ignored or having been only started to be appreciated too where, even if they have their actresses commit to nude scenes or more transgressive plot moments, are dominated by actresses like Iwona Petry and Marina Pierro who take what could come off as humiliating moments and be dominant, always in these films the most complex and rewarding characters against the males and the actors' performances. It's the same here with Nikolaidis' film.

From https://videoth.uloz.to/M/m/v/xMmvfAN.640x360.1.jpg

The style I admit could wrong foot viewers, as like those other directors mentioned (or others with filmographies barely in access like Raul Ruiz) Nikolaidis willingly changed in aesthetic and technical differences per decade like water in a stream bends to its form. Thankfully nothing in See You In Hell, My Darling is an embarrassing time capsule of the late nineties, a film which uses its limited sets and actors to an advantage in how it gives the world onscreen an uneasy wyrd atmosphere. Even objects that time stamp the film like the use of a VHS player are limited and feeling like they have a logic, the ghostly edge of an afterlife where the obsolete technology also goes to. The overly surreal aspects also work so well because the director merely has to represent them with ordinary objects that stick out strongly in appearance to the main environments, from weird masks or the wedding dress Elsa wears, all of them appropriate for a film which is meant to be a crime pastiche, turning it in on itself and still living up to its narrative of betrayal, firearms and poisons.  

Abstract Spectrum: Expressionistic/Psychotronic

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low

Personal Opinion:

Cinema which defies a genre and even dramatic expectations, likely to infuriate many, but as a unique blending of an erotic crime thriller with a purgatorial character drama this is imaginative and truly rewarding for me. That it is also a Greek film is itself a fascination, knowing that a country like Greece has such a complex and rich culture - from ancient Greek mythology and culture to films like the strange genre films to Nikolaidis - but is one that is severely under appreciated as an outsider looking inwards. Arguably the New Weird Wave of Greek cinema needs to call attention back to Nikolaidis as he personifies the country's defiance of country's defiance of conventionality with depicting the human condition.

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