By Daniel Bickermann. You'd think that in this European Short Film Exhibition the contributions of the smaller countries are reduced to filler material – how could the best short film from Malta or Monaco stand up to the very best works from Germany or France? But all the short film fans thinking along those lines are tragically mistaken. They also run the risk of missing out on masterpieces from mini-states like Iceland – or indeed miss this internationally multi-award-winning festival darling from Cyprus, surely one of the visually most overwhelming and thematically most profound entries in our collection.

Framed by two quotations from Plato and Proust, STYX departs on a metaphysical journey through time that spans several centuries – as you would expect with those two names at beginning and end. Fitting with the content of the film, the images of the amazingly talented director of photography George Frentzos may remind viewers alternately of Pasolinis picturesque MEDEA or of Aronofsky's memento to eternity THE FOUNTAIN. Both of those works were aiming for broad emotional impact, and STYX definitely goes there, too. There is a lonely bride on an endless cliff; a wreath of flowers being thrown into the sea on a jagged coast; dark moments of intimacy, with artful lighting through watery reflections and candlelight; moments of love in a light house standing in front of a clear blue sky; a lonesome death in a gloomy hospital bed – this is the cinema of visual force, and at the same time European short filmmaking at its most ambitious.

Anybody who now suspects that all this must go on the expense of the film's content is wrong again: The centuries, the emotions, the wordless stories are woven in each other so intricately, that they give way to a variety of interpretations. The beginning seems clear: After a young woman’s death in a modern hospital we meet a medieval alchemist discovering that every soul gets reborn – an insight that his clerical employer doesn’t like one bit. The two young lovers listen in on the conversation and, like they do throughout the film, don’t utter a single word. Afterwards they stumble through the centuries via re-incarnation – only to always see the never-ending suffering in the eyes of the bereaved, mourning the loss or death of the other. Like Hero and Leander they are separated by the sea of time and can never be together. In the new millennium it is a suicide that lets the woman escape – and finally leads her towards her soul mate.

The film cleverly establishes the different time frames which not only become apparent by means of props, costumes, lighting and camera style, but also through Christina Georgiou’s multi-layered music, that goes all the way from medieval madrigal to post-modern electro rhythms without ever forgetting the main romantic subject or veering into cheap imitations. The astonishing editing done by Constantinos Gavrielides assembles together a whole variety of camera movements, crane shots and some inconspicuous digital effects while always referring back to the interwoven motives like the gold coin – which you need, as is generally known, to pay off the ferryman when crossing the river Styx.

What does it all mean? What is director Alexia Roider trying to tell us in those breathtaking 18 minutes? Are those the memories of a millennium-old woman finally being allowed to die? Is life itself the river Styx that the characters have to cross until they can finally pay their gold coin and reach the other side? Is love eternal, although it can never be in this lifetime? At least the art seems to span the centuries and continents – until reaching Cyprus. It seems to feel quite at home there.

Links

• STYX (CY 2008. Alexia Roider)
• 260 Shots in 5 Days – An interview with Alexia Roider
• There’s Movement – Daniel Bickermann about the Cyprus film market