Adonis Kyrou
2021The Roundup
Adonis Kyrou
Kostas Kazakos, Xenia Kalogeropoulou
One of filmmaker and expatriate writer Adonis Kyrou's best-known quotes translates roughly as "I urge you: Learn to look at 'bad' films, they are so often sublime." The same could be said of Kyrou's own directorial work in Greece before the advent of the 1967 dictatorship forced him to flee to Paris. This confused mess, the first cinematic attempt at portraying the Greek resistance in WWII, caused quite a stink upon release, as much for its surprising style (recalling that of Bertolt Brecht) as for its subject matter. Reaction to its screening as part of the 1966 Cannes Film Festival's International Critic's Week was heated and divisive, proving Kyrou's later statement by rising above its own inherent silliness to achieve a sort of rarefied critical status. It's bad drama that nonetheless succeeds by dint of audacity more than quality (a comment which could apply equally to the work of many exploitation directors like Jean Rollin whom Kyrou later so lovingly profiled).
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Le moine
Adonis Kyrou
Franco Nero, Nathalie Delon
Ambrosio (Franco Nero) is a monk who is sexually tempted by an emissary of the Devil, a young girl in monk's robes. After he has committed numerous crimes, it appears that he will be caught and punished by the Inquisition. Instead, he signs up on the Devil's team and wins his freedom.. and eventually, the papacy.
The Monk
