Verdict
Summary
A somber little film from Greece, The Ogre is somewhat of a cautionary fable with a convincing point of view and a good performance by its lead actor. It feels authentic and true, as if such a sad little story might’ve happened to some poor sap once upon a time. Filmmaker Nikos Koundouros gives the film a poignant and bleak aura from the start, and it makes a lingering impression. Long an obscure film, but worth checking out, this one is for those who think they’ve seen everything and are looking for a unique gem.
Plot:
A nebbish man is mistaken for a crime lord, but he goes along with it, leading to a terrible fate.
Review:
It’s New Year’s Eve, and Athens is abuzz with the prospect of a new year, but the big news on the streets is that the very first image of a master criminal known as “The Ogre” has just been published in the early edition of the newspaper, giving the entire city the chills. On the surface, The Ogre looks like an ordinary man – middle aged, thin, balding – but everyone has heard of his reputation and greatly fears and respects him. In a small corner of the city, a nebbish clerk named Thomas (Dinos Iliopoulos) who looks an awful lot like this Ogre character is given a little bonus money on the last day of the year before he walks home, and when asked what he plans on doing to celebrate the holiday, he basically says he just wants to go home and enjoy the small comforts of his humble life. Thomas has never raised – or caused anyone to raise – a single eyebrow in excess, but everything changes when he casually and unexpectedly begins a little conversation with a young woman who brings him to the nightclub where she works as a dancer and a waitress. While enjoying a drink and the dancing, Thomas is noticed by the nightclub owner, who seems to recognize him from the newspaper; Thomas is mistaken for The Ogre! Not realizing why the mood suddenly shifts in the club, Thomas goes along with the attention, and when everyone basically pats him on the back and treats him like royalty, he accepts the fact that he feels important for the first time in his life. He’s ushered to secret meetings about the development of the city, he’s allowed free access to pretty women and free drinks, and when word gets out later that night before midnight that The Ogre has been spotted, he’s arrested in a big show of force by the police department, which makes him feel incredible. Women weep as the police wagon carts him off to jail, but when the police realize they have the wrong man, he’s released without any fanfare or notice, and he walks back to the nightclub, where he’s ridiculed and scorned … and stabbed out of rage by the same people who praised him earlier that night. Thomas staggers out of the nightclub at dawn, alone and with no one to care about him, but his last thought is one of wonderment and bewilderment as to how and why he chose to accept the role of The Ogre when he’d lived his whole life without ever making a fuss …
A somber little film from Greece, The Ogre is somewhat of a cautionary fable with a convincing point of view and a good performance by its lead actor. It feels authentic and true, as if such a sad little story might’ve happened to some poor sap once upon a time. Filmmaker Nikos Koundouros gives the film a poignant and bleak aura from the start, and it makes a lingering impression. Long an obscure film, but worth checking out, this one is for those who think they’ve seen everything and are looking for a unique gem.
Radiance Films brings The Ogre to Blu-ray for the first time, and it comes in a high definition transfer and includes a new video intro by author Jonathan Franzen, a booklet, and more. It’s limited to 2500 copies.
Bonus Materials
- LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES
- High-Definition digital transfer
- Uncompressed mono PCM audio
- New introduction from Jonathan Franzen (2025)
- New interview with critic Christina Newland (2025)
- New interview with Greek film expert Dimitris Papanikolaou (2025)
- Newly improved English subtitle translation
- Reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters
- Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Andréas Giannopoulos and extract from Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom
- Limited edition of 2500 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
