Eden is West

Although handsome Italian star, Riccardo Scamarcio, gives a moving – yet almost silent – performance in Costa-Gavras' new film, Eden is West, many local  viewers may feel the real "stars" are the beautiful – and not so beautiful – Cretan location shots.

As in The Odyssey, the Aegean Sea is the setting where our hero, Elias (Scamarcio), sets out on his adventures. After countless incidents and accidents, a stopover in paradise and a sojourn in hell, the magical journey takes us from Crete to Paris.

Turning the drama of illegal immigration into a sometimes humorous trek sounds like a foolhardy enterprise, but master filmmaker Costa-Gavras gets away with it, thanks largely to some fine acting and wonderful camera work.  The first part of the film was shot in our own backyard, starting with a nude-beach scene at Aghios Nikolaos. From there, our hero sneaks onto the grounds of the fictional Eden Paradise Resort, which in reality is the luxurious Royal Mare Village in Hersonissos.

Many local residents signed on as extras in the film, including our own editor, Lou Duro, who appears prominently in several scenes (his story on the making of the film appeared in last June's edition of The Khronicles). While most of the local filming shows off the beauty of our island, there is one scene of our hero leaving the resort in a car racing along the road, which, unfortunately, was shot in Gouves Township on the old national highway at Kako Oros, with its ugly and illegal poster-polluted walls exposed to the world.

Eden is West is a very good film and worth seeing for many reasons – not the least of which is the nude beach scene in Aghios Nikolaos.