Reviews 1 — Ken McMullen

OXI: An Act of Resistance (2014)

The word ‘OXI’ is the Greek word for ‘NO’. It is also a powerful political signifier. A sign that has appeared throughout history signifying ‘Resistance’ on streets, in public places and even on the Acropolis itself during Ottoman and Nazi occupation.

“‘OXI: An Act of Resistance’ was not an easy film to make, and is not an easy film to describe. The reasons for that are found in its subject matter and in its search to find a sympathetic form. The film attempts to give cinematic reflection to the ongoing austerity crisis that is gradually undermining our sense of the benign in contemporary existence, often without recognition of the fractures created. ‘OXI: An Act of Resistance’ places both classical tragedy and contemporary politics into a single dramatic frame. It is the result of a deep journey into the nature of dramatic catharsis and a large number of political and economic interviews and reflections.”

— Director’s Note

“Ken McMullen’s film OXI offers a fierce critique of the economic policy that underlies the Greek crisis, representing what is happening in terms of the irresoluble conflicts of tragedy: between the demands of humanity and care and the imperatives of the market. This timely publication of the screenplay of the film, accompanied by some powerful critical essays, brings out the significance of the perspective of the humanities in such a crisis, to guard against the danger of treating economics as the master science.”

— Mary Margaret McCabe, Keeling Scholar in Residence and Honorary Professor, University College London

“The film required a fresh approach to dramatic construction and to the integration of actuality footage. By blurring the boundaries between objective and subjective worlds, ‘OXI’ perhaps points towards a newly developing genre in cinema. The style of shooting involved many long takes with gentle camera movement; this closes in on the performances, evocative landscape (which acts as a text in itself), and raw street footage. Ancient texts are underscored by contemporary encounters where strangely, unknown to participants, the same themes re-occur and the same words are suddenly spoken. It is as if the unconscious, prompted by extreme external circumstances, breaks through to find utterance.”

— Director’s Note

“Oxi is a film and an act of resistance, a way of countering the conditions of a current crisis or drama. This 'drama' - the word means crossroads or crisis - reveals our own indebtedness to Greece; and Oxi thereby addresses the very nature of our present global financial crisis. To read this is to affirm something other than debt: Oxi also says ‘ναι’ – yes - to a different modernity, a different set of global arrangements.”

— Thomas Docherty, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Warwick

“In working through the many processes involved in this film it became necessary to juxtapose very different acting, performance and shooting methods. The work draws on deep traditions in Greece, the clarity of acting styles in the UK and France, and on a degree of improvisation. The fusion of these elements, I believe, results in a dialectical synthesis which, in its form, mirrors the movement of historic forces we are witnessing today.

‘OXI’ is the word and also the sign of resistance used for centuries of occupation in Greece.”

— Director’s Note

OXI weaves a filmic tableau of power and poetic beauty reflecting the great dramas of Sophocles and Aristophanes (sections of whose play 'The Frogs' are filmed here). OXI attempts to integrate moments of the absurd into this deeply disturbing political reality highlighting the multifaceted nature and fragility of the human condition not just in Greece but in all places that are vulnerable to blind economic forces.

PRODUCED, WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY KEN McMULLEN