APARTMENT IN ATHENS a film by Ruggero Dipaola

Athens, 1943. An apartment is requisitioned to provide accommodation for a German officer. In the partment live the Helianos, a middle-aged couple who used to be well-off. He is an intellectual, moderate and atient. She is an anxious housewife. They have a ten-year old son who is filled with melodramatic revenge  antasies and a twelve-year old daughter. With the arrival of Captain Kalter everything is wiped out. The ethodical, ascetic, cruel Kalter is a military god who inflicts terror. And the Helianos give in, submissive. They are now  ervants, with no identity other than their acquiescence. The will of the military god is their only worry. The apartment enshrouds them like an epidermis. At night, clinging to each other on the folding bed in the itchen, they weave wild ravings: they dread the following day’s orders, they exchange sparse, terse words. They are fraid of making noise, they don’t want to move anything. Then, suddenly the absence. The master leaves for ermany and the servants find out that freedom doesn’t have any meaning and that the ordeal goes on. When alter comes back, they feel relieved. He is a changed man: he’s kinder, even indulgent. His indulgency is ewildering. But it is a fragile balance.Underground currents of hatred flow secretly and prepare a chilling revenge.