Der Spiegel – Oliver Kaever

Syllas Tzoumerkas aims at the guts of the audience. A Blast is an insanely intensive editing beast. Past and present are in a permanent state of confrontation. Almost without noticing the edit, scenes and emotions that are separated by many years, collide. The result are montage sequences that stay in the mind for long. In fact Tzoumerkas directs each sequence towards its boiling point. Emotions and nerves are on the edge.

A Blast is a toxic reckoning with the parent generation, a radical attack on the generation whose actions led to the current crisis. But here nobody gets off scott-free. Not even Tzoumerkas’ own generation, which stumbles through life in blind egomania and overwhelming perplexity, leaving scorched earth wherever they get to.

Angeliki Papoulia, one of the most fearless European actresses, plays Maria without an emergency break, yet leaving enough space to hint at the desperation of her character.

A Blast shows a dimension of the Greek misery, which in German media is only mentioned in fleeting. The film shows a country with a crack right in the middle. A crack that runs through generations, families, the society. Self hatred rules. The economic and humanitarian crisis is a psychological one too.” Read more →