praying for what
cannot be spoken
by Douglas Messerli
Thanasis Neofotistos, Katerina Pipergia, and
Grigoris Skarakis (screenplay), Thanasis Neofotistos (director) Prosefhi (Greek
School Prayer) / 2014 [20 minutes]
Thanasis Neofotistos’s Greek School Prayer is
a slightly strange and intriguing short film from 2014 which concerns school
bullying handled in a different manner from what we you see as the response.
The beautiful boy Dimistris (Christos Karavevas) has apparently, even
before the first scene of the film, been regularly bullied by Vassilis (Stelios
Karambinas) and his basketball-playing friends and girlfriends.
We
witness none of this and very little bullying in the narrative itself, but we
recognize Vassilis as the leader of a group who believe themselves the most
popular figures in their high school who make life difficult for those around
them.
In the middle of the ball game, Vassilis offers the ball up to one of
the players, clearly the least talented among them, and who clearly somewhat
afraid of the boys with whom he’s playing. Amazed to have the opportunity to
show any talents he may have, the boy shoots, but while he is doing so Vassilis
pulls down his pants, resulting in guffaws by all the students around him.
Every morning a different student is required to recite the morning
Trisagion prayers (the school is evidently a religious institution), and while
one of the nerdy boys obediently recites the prayer Vassilis or one of his
friends throws a large paper sack at his head, everyone laughing in response.
At another point on the bus trip on the way to school each morning, a
good-looking girl enters at a stop and sits next to Dimitri. From the back of
the bus Vassilis walks up asking her, out of the blue, whether she will go
steady with his friend Pavlos. She tells him to get lost, but he persists,
Dimitri also looking at him, astounded by his rude behavior. Vassilis snaps at
him, “What’s your problem? You want to go steady with Pavlos?” The entire bus
breaks into laughter.
We
finally come to realize, consequently, that his fellow classmates believe
Dimitri to be gay, and the hostility he fears has to do with months or years of
such verbal abuse.
Yet, none of this seems to be the worst kind of abuse possible. And each
day when the boys play basketball, Dimitri sits near on cement row of seats
intently watching the game without speaking. When the others leave, Vassilis
continues to play on along, lifting his shirt somewhat provocatively to reveal
his naked chest as he wipes his eyes of sweat. Turning again and again toward
the intently watching beauty in what can only be described as a homoerotic
interchange. Certainly it is memorable to Dimitri since he repeats the scene in
his mind a couple of times, once alone in his bedroom. But the subterfuge
message is acknowledged, nonetheless, through Dimitri’s action of pulling on a
green sweater immediately after the jock raises his green T-shirt to his eyes.
The
boys’ mutual actions might almost be described as a kind of come-on, a sexual
challenge. But surely Dimitri is justifyably fearful that if he were to any way
show any sexual interest it would be met by further verbal abuse or even
violence. It is like a show-down between the two, Vassili doing a strange kind
of sexual dance to engage Dimitri while at the same time challenging him to an
unstated duel.
For his part Dimitri, at home, has created a kind of sculptural
voodoo-like installation, a ceramic schoolhouse for which he rolls out new
figures from clay, paints them, and places them within the structure. We never
see what he is doing with his “dolls,” but it is clearly rather ritualistic,
and he won’t permit his mother to enter the room when she knocks.
One day in the classroom while the history teacher recites boring facts,
Vassili and his gang throw another paper object at a student, interrupting the
teacher’s speech. Unable to find the culprit, he continues as Vassili quickly
pens the words: I ♥ you, directed at Dimitri, who refuses to look
back.
The teacher observing it sends the abuser to the principal’s office. And a day
later we see the school principal with Vassili and two individuals we gather
are his parents, all leaving the school. They shake hands politely, but once
the principal has reentered the building, the father slaps his son and screams
at him, the mother attempting to prevent further physical abuse, while he
strikes him in the back again. We see, obviously, how Vassili came to be a bully;
he has been bullied himself.
Yet, none of this seems to move Dimitri who fears him, particularly
since he has now been selected to recite the morning prayers.
That morning on the bus, the young Adonis has pulled his lovely head of
hair back into a bun. When called to recite, he doesn’t respond until finally
he is pulled out of the line and brought to the front.
Dimitri begins the recitation, but as he looks across the rows of
students he observes some talking to others, still others chewing on
sandwiches, and others completely oblivious to his painful recitation. In his
imagination, they loudly empty the space, calling him “faggot,” “queer,”
“wuss,” and other names as they depart.
When the scene snaps back into real time, however, nothing out of the
ordinary has occurred. He has finished his prayers without anyone mocking him.
Vassili passes by on his way down the hall.
But it almost as if Dimitri is disappointed by the lack of hostile
response. He runs down the hall after Vassili and slightly pushes him, the
taller boy turning back and putting his hand momentarily on his shoulder as he
asks what the boy’s problem is.
Vassili friends all scold him for what appears to be a gentle and
perhaps just a little too long of a placement of hand upon the boy’s body,
reprimanding him to not touch him, that he may be infectious etc. Vassili pulls
away and begins up the stairs.
But this time instead of meekly standing apart and away, Dimitri chases
after him as he turns up another staircase just out of sight.
Suddenly Vassili falls to the landing below in sight of the camera,
evidently knocked out, Dimitri looking down at him from above, leading us to
wonder if he has, in fact, pushed him.
We might almost have imagined that the scene was another aspect of
Dimitri’s imagination, but a few days later, as Dimtri sits in usual place
watching the boys play basketball, Vassili finally returns, his leg is a cast.
Several of his friends run over to great him, he responding, evidently
to their questions, that the floor must have been wet and he simply slipped and
fell; but soon another of the player’s curtly calls them back to the game.
Obviously in Vassili’s absence a new “leader” has emerged.
Vassili sits for a short moment or two on the sideline like Dimitri, but
quickly signals over a young boy, either a freshman or perhaps even a grade
school kid who’s watching the elders play. He quickly tells the boy that he’s
been watching and liked what he’s seen, inviting him to join him in the game.
The boy takes the hook, hardly believing his luck at having suddenly
been befriended by Vassili. As they join the other players, their former leader
asks them to pause to let the boy shoot.
It seems like an unusual gesture from the bully, but perhaps he is also
attempting to show Dimitri something, that he is not simply what his peer
thinks he is. But when the boy misses the hoop by a mile, all laugh and engage
with Vassili once again. Obviously it has been a ruse to gain attention, the
only way Vassili survives in his fragile universe.
As
the game continues, Vassili turns and looks face at Dimitri, staring directly
in his face, Dimitri intensely staring back, both with blank faces. It is
perhaps another standoff, a show down with no action needed to make its point.
But it is also clearly a calling out, a kind of cry for a relationship between
the two of them than perhaps can never take place, a prayer that can never be
answered.
Los Angeles, April 8, 2022
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April
2022).
