Dead Europe

Synopsis: When his father dies in a car accident (or was it suicide?), Isaac (Ewen Leslie) travels back to Greece to his father’s village to scatter his ashes. There and across the rest of Europe he slowly uncovers the dark history of his family before they migrated to Australia.

I don’t like Christos Tsiolkas, I find his prose unreadable. I’ve never been able to get through The Slap, I just throw the book across the room. I asked a friend of mine who works in publishing (because that fact somehow makes his opinion more authoritative when I refer to it here) what I was missing. He agreed with me, it’s just not our thing. I don’t think Tsiolkas is lacking in ideas, I just really dislike the way he writes. So it’s not really a surprise that I enjoyed Dead Europe, since it has stripped out the key element that has kept me from enjoying his novels, namely his prose, and replaced it with Tony Krawitz’s excellent visual sensibilities.

Dead Europe is a film that sneaks up on you, starting out as a suburban family drama with a few odd notes to it. The strange mysticism of Isaac’s parents, their belief in curses and the like, seems like a quirky element to the story of a migrant family resettled in a new country. But once Isaac begins his travels, things get weirder and the smile on my face grew broader. It will intrigue you, as the narrative morphs from a simple family drama into a kind of thriller before paying off all those strange moments as it becomes clear that this is actually a very grubby ghost story. It also delves into the baked-in anti-semitism of a Europe still living in the shadow of World War 2 in a most discomfiting way. The sense of menace and decay is artfully done, and by the end you’ll want to take a shower. The ways it all builds displays excellent craft both in Krawitz’s direction, and the scripting by Louise Fox.

Ewen Leslie is solid as the slowly unravelling Isaac, losing his mind piece by piece as he uncovers more and more of the horror behind some family myths. Marton Csokas as his brother Nico doesn’t get much to do, but manages a creepily fey presence all the same. Playing a mysterious boy who seems to be stalking Isaac, Kodi Smit-McPhee is fine, but I hope he breaks out of the “traumatised boy” roles he seems to show up in.

Dead Europe is a taut, weird and enjoyably uncomfortable experience that manages to create a sense of almost cosmic horror. It’s quite an original piece of work, and definitely one to take a look at.

 

 

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