Smuggling Hendrix, written and directed by Marios Piperides - 8.4 out of 10

Smuggling Hendrix, written and directed by Marios Piperides
8.4 out of 10


If you have never seen a film from Cyprus before, this is your chance not just to look at some production from an unfamiliar place, but to enjoy a good film.

For this feature does not limit itself to present the main story, but it has a few levels of interest.
From the opening scenes, we learn about the conflict that has separated the beautiful island that has one part within the European Union, while the other is occupied by Turkish forces and has a rather unfortunate fate and status.

Following the fabulous dog, called Jimi Hendrix and smuggled in the title, the public in fact learns about the division, lost property, the plight of those living in the occupied territory, sometimes from scenes with amusing tensions, such as the one in the Turkish sauna:

"Look, nobody likes anybody else here...you don't like him, he doesn't like you, I don't like him..."

Yiannis is the musician at the center of the film, a young Cypriot living in the Greek area, owner of Jimi, a dog he used to share with his ex-partner.
Her name is Kika, and when the musician sees her, a few days before he would depart for Holland, where he would live, he tries to walk on a different street.

Alas, he is wanted by some loan sharks and they happen to be very near... We now know that Cyprus is not huge and to begin with, we are limited to one side of it.
Forced by circumstances, the protagonist and his dog take refuge in a shop, where the owner is annoyed to see that his space is used for hiding and not buying anything.

Soon after, Jimi flees and his owner is chasing after him with no hope of finding it.
A rather amusing, if awkward scene takes place at the Buffer Zone, where the guard on the Greek side tries to help and communicates with his counterpart, on the other side, presumably a sort of enemy.

One of the messages of the film, probably the most important, is that people can get along and although separated by an artificial border and harboring enmities, the characters would oppose each other for some time, but eventually they find ways to even help one another.
The first dialogue across the divide ends with the guards shouting fuck you at each other.

But the Turkish soldier is kind enough to keep the missing dog for his owner.
Yiannis would cross the artificial line into the occupied zone, without a passport on his side, where he is informed there is no border...they do not want to recognize a partition that exists on the ground.

However, when he wants to walk back with his recovered pet, the Greek official who was so disinterested the first time, stops him on his return:

You can't walk back!
Why?
Animals are not allowed from that side...EU laws forbid it.

Thus, the aggrieved owner is forced to walk back, in an area where he finds his parents' former home.
It is now the house where Hassan and his family live.

The evolution of the relationship between him and Yianniscould be the subject of a very interesting analysis.
First, they confront each other, Hassan challenging this stranger over the reason why he is in his house.

Your house? It is my house!

At a later stage, the Greek Cypriot would accuse his Turkish nemesis of War Crimes, because he had taken his property.

After the first heated exchange, the musician promises that he would never come back, if he is helped to take his friend back over the Buffer Zone.
They then meet with Tuberk, in a memorable scene in the hammam, where they talk about Smuggling Hendrix.

There is disagreement over the price and the evident enmity over the territorial dispute...
Mind you, it is not just over Cyprus that the Turks and Greeks disagree and often have clashed in history.

If we mention history, that has centuries of severe conflict, the annexation of Greece by the Ottoman Empire and a hatred that this film shows that it can be ended.
Hendrix is stopped at the border, alas.

For some time it even looks like he would never be returned.
Indeed, he is taken at a farm whee animals are killed.

But there is hope and I would not use spoiler alerts to reveal what happens.
Suffice it to say that the Cypriot motion picture is laudable and entertaining.


Almost forgotten is the joke from the Turkish sauna:

Do you how dogs bark in Dutch?
No
Waf, waf
In Turkish?
How?
Nav, nav
How do they bark in Greek?
Hav, hav...

Probably some of those are wrong...the cultural point was interesting though.