06/08/2025
https://kinoculturemontreal.com/endless-land/
Review
By Élie Castiel
★★★★ The Gaze of Lazarus
Vassilis Mazomenos undoubtedly stands among those few Greek filmmakers who persist in forging a body of work defined by formal experimentation — fragmented, yet imbued with a nearly sacred solemnity, at times even provocative. Not to challenge the gaze, but rather to transform it into a visual weapon of change. Something that can illuminate our vision of the world and of things.
Even more to his credit, he expresses this without ostentation; on the contrary, with a restraint that affirms his distinctiveness within Greek cinema — still little known internationally, despite many festival appearances over the past few decades. If, after the death of Theo Angelopoulos — that cinematic shaman of his era — Yorgos Lanthimos managed to rise to international fame through radical experimentation, even relocating abroad to continue his path, Mazomenos remains rooted in his origins, building his opus from within, against all odds. Hence his deep attachment to ancient Greece, that founding pillar of our modernity, now scorned by ongoing political and social turmoil.
The Death of Lazarus
Mazomenos has fallen in love with Epirus — a land that breathes ancient tragedy, the elemental signs of the human condition, the magic of place, and most of all, a present that tries to emerge in this immutable landscape, not through confrontation but through due respect. As in the film, Sky and Earth seem both enemies and bound by reverence.
There is something moral in his filmmaking. We’ve witnessed this in earlier works, like the powerful Purgatory (Kathartírio). This time, however, he offers a different film — one where the reference to Greek tragedy serves as fiction. In truth, he could just as well have shot a documentary. The women’s chorus, the central ritual tree, a simple white cloth serving as an offering — all these elements, hallmarks of Hellenic tradition, appear through Mazomenos’ gaze as if abandoned by modernity, and yet still ingrained in Greece’s foundational Europeanness. This is the very material of the film. Potent.
In the end, Endless Land — a title that embodies all the beauty, meaning, and allegory of a return to roots. Not physically or organically, but spiritually. So that memory, in the end, will not fade.
The film’s duration is itself a state of mind, a tool of resistance: no wasted shots, only the essential. And yet, so many ideas — reflecting the director’s idiosyncrasy, his uncompromising vision, and at the same time, his deep affection for the medium he never ceases to defend.
Like a Resurrection
The story? It hardly matters. It is present in the places, the variations, the dialogues marked by truth — even with their peculiar humor.
Unity of place, tone, and blurred timelines. Not a linear narrative, but a series of dialogued, felt tableaux that, while maintaining accessibility, render the work intense, markedly different from the director’s previous films. And all actors deeply invested in their belief in this project.
While paying homage to ancient Greece, Mazomenos also offers a discreet respect toward his country’s Orthodox Christianity — a choice that some might consider dubious, but which, carefully handled, reveals itself as juxtaposed with antiquity, precisely by situating it outside the sacred space. A white cross, stark and visible at the church entrance: a point of connection.
This fusion of elements generates a strange sensation. The wager has been won. All of it enhanced by the excellent sound work of Filipos Marinelis and Antonis Samaras, the elegiac score by DNA, and the wide 2.35:1 format that frames it all the more emphatically.
In the end, Endless Land — a title that conveys all the beauty, meaning, and allegory of a return to the source. Not a physical one, but a spiritual one. So that memory, ultimately, may never vanish.
RÉSUMÉ SUCCINCT Après la mort accidentelle de son père, Lazarus grandit dans un village éloigné de L’Épire, une région des Balkans partagée entre la Grèce et l’Albanie. Il y fait l’expérience…
